Paper Doll: een energetische stroom

Het publiek is stil. Er is een geconcentreerde stilte. Vijf danseressen vormen een rij, waarbij ze elkaars hand, pols of onderarm omvatten. Achter hen een dooraderde wand, die soms dieprood oker opgloeit. Hun lichte tunieken contrasteren met hun bruine huid. Net als de reeks papieren poppetjes, het beeld dat voor Padmini Chettur als inspiratiebron diende voor deze choreografie, vormen deze danseressen een lijn. Maar de broosheid van de papieren popjes vinden we niet terug. De bewegende lijn van de danseressen herbergt een constante spanning.

De buitenste danseres buigt door haar knieën. Vanuit een zwakke kromming golft de lijn via de tweede naar een derde danseres, die met een zorgvuldige traagheid van rechts naar links draait. Verder golft hij naar de volgende danseres, die haar knieën zijwaarts buigt en naar de buitenste, die op haar tenen gaat staan. De lijn herbergt een volle, levende energie. Een energie die heen en terug golft maar zich op haar tocht ook steeds vertakt en wortelt in elke danseres.

Ook als de danseressen elkaar loslaten en zich verspreiden blijft de spanning voelbaar. Ze reageren op elkaar. Een danseres vooraan brengt haar arm van voor haar lichaam naar opzij, ze rekt de beweging eindeloos en draait met haar arm mee. De anderen, als schimmen op de achtergrond, draaien ieder vanuit hun eigen positie om hun as. Dan weer zwaait ze snel en krachtig haar arm om haar schouder, kletst haar andere hand op haar rug. De anderen gaan mee in haar traag-heftige tempo. Tonen klinken in de voorstelling. Niet een geheel van melodische klanken, maar afzonderlijke tonen. Markeerpunten in tijd, in ritme. Het getokkel op een uiterst strak gespannen snaar is te horen. Later horen we hoe de snaar minder strak gespannen wordt: haar tonen worden lager, resoneren langer, maar gaan daarna weer omhoog, worden strakker. De energie tussen de danseressen, is als de spanning op die snaar.

De tonen, de trage concentratie, de bewegingen die niet alleen van binnenuit komen, maar in samenspel zijn met het onzichtbare buiten zijn een contrast met het snelle, krachtige en solistische aspect dat in westerse dans vaak domineert. Chettur is als danser geschoold in de traditionele Indiase Bharata Natyam stijl. Haar dans is een zoektocht naar een eigen bewegingsvorm. Het is een loskomen van de traditionele Indiase dansstijl, maar niet van haar identiteit als Indiase en de aard van de beweging intrinsiek aan die identiteit. Ze stelt zich teweer tegen het eendimensionale vrouwbeeld dat die traditionele dans uitdraagt. De bewegingen daarin zijn tot in detail vastgelegd, om de danseressen als zachte, ronde verleidsters naar voren te laten treden.

De danseressen in deze choreografie, waaronder Chettur zelf, zijn mooi. Hun bewegingen, hoe eenvoudig ook, zijn van een gepolijste bedachtzaamheid. Een simpele sierlijkheid. Maar in hun concentratie op de beweging in henzelf en die om hen heen zijn het eerst en vooral dansers; geen verleiders, geen krachtpatsers, geen papieren poppetjes. Vrouwen, ontegenzeglijk vrouwen, in samenspel met beweging.

Toch is er in de bewegingen vaak een weerstand merkbaar, een worsteling bijna. Vooral later in de choreografie. Een danseres buigt. Haar handen op de vloer schuiven ieder een kant op. Zij valt, haar armen zijwaarts gestrekt. Dan schuift, knarst, rolt zij met haar lichaam over de vloer. Haar arm schiet uit en zij kletst met haar hand op de vloer aan de ene zijde van haar lichaam. De arm beschrijft een boog naar de vloer aan de andere zijde, haar lichaam wringt zich mee: pats! Een beeld van worsteling, een dunne vlaag van lijden.

Het eindbeeld is poëtisch. De danseressen staan minutenlang stil, hun gezicht naar de opgloeiende achterwand die diepte lijkt te krijgen. Ze gaan een horizon tegemoet, die eindeloze mogelijkheden in zich lijkt te herbergen.

Ruth Naber (24 april 2005)

PARIS -- As inevitable as conflict may seem these days, the world offers choices. Gerard Violette, artistic director of the Theatre de la Ville -- arguably the most critical dance presenter in the world -- and its two spaces, closes his season-opening greetings by quoting from Albert Jacquard's "My Utopia" (Stock): "Nowadays, most encounters are opportunities for confrontation, struggle, prize-listing. Yet, nothing matters but the possibility to exchange. It is our view of the other that must be transformed. We must no longer consider him as a competitor.... What I would like to say is you may become what you choose to be. And that other people's happiness concurs to build one's own." To which Violette adds: "'Other views, exchange, other people's happiness....' You're in a theater." I read this Wednesday night sitting in TDLV's 380-seat les Abbesses theater up near the sky in Montmartre, where Padmini Chettur immediately proved the precept in "Paperdoll."

Based in Chennai in the culturally rich Southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, Chettur trained in Bharata Natyam and earned her experience dancing with the legendary Chandralekha for a decade. She eventually found herself pulled more by pure movement experiments than gender and body politic exploration, and that's lead her to "Paperdoll" which, for the most part successfully, welds a dance form that too often yields to sloppiness, post-modern, onto bodies trained in a form with a lot more discipline. If modern dance is too often diluted by dancers and choreographers who think it means they don't have to have training, imagine the opposite result -- the same vocabulary wielded by dancers with minute and exquisite control -- and you have "Paperdoll."

I usually start out already jaded when confronting -- oops, je m'excuse, Monsieur Violette -- a "fusion" work. And what I've seen involving Indian forms, notably Akram Khan's "Ma," though involving Kathak not Bharata Natyam, did not give me high expectations for Chettur's attempt. I didn't realize how smart she is.

Rather than melange gestures from the two forms, Chettur basically applies Bharata Natyam's precision to post-modern phrasing, giving the latter a rare clarity and thus making it more indelible. So when the hand-linked chain of women whose line tableau opens the work -- even as the audience is filing in (thank you, Eliot Feld) -- slowly starts to wend its way around the stage, and Chettur has the dancers mark out individual paths on contrasting levels with their bodies, even as they stay linked, if the gestures (particularly in the torso) are post-modern or modern in their shape, the execution is more refined. The rope formation also lets her play with tension, as it's pulled left, right, up or down.

Chettur's conception and exploitation of space is also more broad and investigative than we usually see in post-modern dance, which can often seem solipsistic, the performer (or his/her choreographer) more interested in exploring the bubble around him/her than the geography of the larger stage. After framing it with the linked dancers, Chettur begins to dissect it, in the way she divides and deploys her troupe -- often one player in front, downstage right or left, and four in back upstage, in the opposite corner. While this is effective in giving matter to the space, the solo choreography is often not as interesting as the group etchings, particularly in an over-long segment when one performer does the post-modern floor-rolling thing. Off her feet -- or maybe I mean off that highly-developed center -- the Bharata Natyam dancer seemed to founder on one of post-modern's more muddled terrains.

The two other related 'negative' criticisms I would have is that in the latter half of the piece, the unvaried slow tempo of both movement and Maarten Visser score become too monotonous, a drone which has over-stayed its welcome and lost its dramatic effect.

"Paperdoll" closes tonight at the Theatre les Abbesses. In addition to the choreographer, it is performed by Krishna Devanandan, Preethi Athreya, Ashwini Bhat, and Anoushka Kurien.

Thanks to the Theatre de la Ville's Michael Chase for translation assistance, and to Caitlin Sims for the Indigo Girls quote.
For Ranja, whose fight against the dark spaces provided the top headline, and much more.

Utterly Irresistible

DANCE
Solo And Paper Doll
By Padmini Chettur
Esplanade Theatre Studio
Last Saturday

Deng Fuquan

ALTHOUGH Padmini Chettur has graced reputable dance festivals in Europe, she has been conspicuously absent in Asia.

So, by presenting this sterling Indian choreographer, hence reclaiming the region's artistic gem, the Esplanade made a shrewd choice indeed – bravo.

Chettur's debut here was nothing less than a double treat.

She presented her dance Solo first on Sept 5 and then her ensemble creation, Paper Doll, last Saturday.

Both works unveiled a taut vision that took contemporary Indian dance for what it is, and how it should look, to radical dimensions.

At the core of Chettur's work was resistance.

She sought to re-order tradition, even as she was rooted in the classical Indian dance form of Bharatanatyam.

Like her guru Chandralekha, India's contemporary dance doyenne, Chettur rejected fancy gestures, overt emotions and other dance clichés. So there were no gods, no epics and no mysticism.

Hers was, instead, a study of anatomy and kinesics. The audience's perception was directed to the motion arising essentially from the architecture of the body.

Onlookers saw measured movement phrases which unfolded through repetition and accumulation.

Unlike British choreographer Akram Khan who, at last year's Singapore Arts Festival, seamlessly wed classical Kathak dance with contemporary technique, Chettur consciously built dissonance into her work.

Dutch composer Maarten Visser's intriguing score of fragmented sounds generated tension too, adding texture and fissure to the flesh and movement on stage.

Much as there was resistance against harmony, there was also a masterful hand that left no room for random improvising.

And, despite the calculated austerity, each work exuded a dignified vulnerability. For instance, in Paper Doll, four dancers garbed in roasted beige, moved at first to a metronomic drill before collapsing gradually, as if they were bodies with no will.

Then, the mottled backdrop of different ochre shades intensified and darkened. The dancers moved ever so slightly, some drifting forward, others backward, all the while with their backs to the audience.

In this contemplative landscape, one of the dancers would suddenly stoop to the floor, becoming a seemingly legless torso.

With scenes such as this, Chettur enacted moving metaphors of femininity on stage, which were all sublime and resonant.

It may be said that within her art of abstraction lies a sophisticated mind and intrinsic beauty.

Flash Reviews

der Standard
sa/su 6./7. July 07
p.26
Outrageous Paperdoll

Two works of Padmini Chettur at Salzburg's Sommerszene by Helmut Ploebst

Salzburg – If we in this country think of Indian dance, we tend to conjure up images of innocent folk art, ranging from snake charmers to the icon of Bharatanatyam Alarmel Valli. Chandralekha was the first "modern" Indian Choreographer, who managed 25 years ago, to abandon the stereotype of temple dance. Her student, Padmini Chettur (37) has set standards, as could be seen here at Salzburg's Sommerszene, which are outrageous for India and a real challenge for Europe. Chatter's work cannot be appreciated highly enough, particularly if it is regarded from a European vantage point and seen in the context of Indian dance culture. In order to get an impression of how radically different the works of this Chennai-based choreographer are and that her creations have nothing in common with mainstream Indian dance, one would have to mention names like Trisha Brown or Yvonne Rainer. Sommerszene presented two extensive pieces, Paper Doll (2005) and Pushed (2006) that, even in the European context, do show their pioneer-like qualities. She provokes even here, also because her aesthetic and political position is several degrees stronger than those of European dance-conceptualists. However, the insight, that Arts have a better impact on society if the chosen form is contradictory to the conventions of the establishment, is shared by all dance-conceptualists.

Slow-motion extreme
The extreme slow motion of all her movements is characteristic for Chettur and so is the conscious renunciation of male dancers and the strong anchorage in the Indian culture – mainly through the costumes- as well as the deconstruction of Bharatanatyam by means of Western dance. Chettur`s choreographic minimalism found in "Paper Doll" a strictly formalistic expression, in "Pushed" atmospheric and narrative elements are incorporated. The artist hits the audience where it hurts: She crosses the boundaries into what was named "Fade" by the French philosopher Francois Jullien. Although Jullien was referring to historical Chinese Art, he is understood to have meant the single space into which performing Arts never move, in fact they avoid it like the Devil would avoid Holy Water. Both shows in the "Republic" were sold out and Chettur and her dancers were appreciated with much cheer and applause. For her precision, her strength, her consequence and most probably also for her refined charisma and her fascinating presence. The choreographer is slowly but surely receiving the appreciation she deserves in Europe, as she remains highly controversial in India, almost like Pina Bausch in Germany some time ago.