In Stree Katha (womans story), the absolutely hypnotizing Mythili displays, in a solo performance, a virtuosity that encompasses all the elements of Bharata Natyam, from precise rhythmic footwork to expressive hand gestures and body postures. Particularly striking are the facial expressions she commands, filled with emotional intensity. (From my vantage point in the audience, I happened to occasionally experience the illusion of being in her direct line of sight. This really cemented her physical eloquence and luminous eyes.) Given that Bharatanatyam is a storytelling art in which a single dancer will often represent multiple characters, its a necessary quality to have. Mythilis impressive skill, expressed through her own original choreography, delivers the beautiful abhinaya movements for suggesting rasa (the audiences emotional response) and bhaava (emotions expressed by the dancer) needed to draw the audience into the drama and effectively convey the storys meaning. From this comes an added kudos for making her performance accessible to novices like myself, who are quite far from understanding the significance of each gesture and pose. Through occasionally over-long narration between dances (including a recitation of Maya Angelous poem Phenomenal Woman), Mythili explains the story she then performs, providing an excellent opportunity to match the complex vocabulary of gestures with their meaning.
Asking Questions, Challenging Assumptions
Based on the Ramayana, the epic tale of the Indian hero Rama that forms a vital part of Indian culture, Stree Katha is not about Rama himself as might be typical. In a feminist change of focus, Stree Katha is about three women of the Ramayana or, as the program puts it, three tragic heroines. Though questioning the social inequality of women on the basis of power, sexuality, or cultural norms is nothing new in our questionably post-feminist age, Stree Katha does play the game well by asking questions to challenge accepted interpretations of a major cultural work. Its not deconstruction, but it certainly amounts to a dismantling of the standard assumption that underlies patriarchal cultures, namely, that the value of being a woman is less than the value of being a man.
While two of the heroines serve to illustrate staple issues of womens relationship to power and sexuality, revealing the contradictions in how Ramas wife, Sita, is depicted in the Ramayana best makes Stree Kathas point. Typically presented as every bit the perfect wife loving, selfless, faithful Sita represents the ideals of womanhood. Yet in embodying these ideals, she also leads a life of suffering that ends with her being rejected by her beloved Rama and, ultimately, swallowed up by the earth. Doing what is culturally correct simultaneously dooms rather than rewards Sita and all because she is a woman.
A Great Venue for a Great Performance
Accompanied by the beautiful carnatic music of Debur Srivathsa (vocals, composer), V. Vedakrishnan (percussion), Mahesh Swamy (flute) and Shakti Dance Company founder Viji Prakash (cymbals, conducting), Mythili shakes the Ramayana boat with remarkable physicality and theatricality. At two more or less non-stop hours in length, she also demonstrates impressive stamina; Mythili easily outdoes an audience that probably could have used a break from seats that arent exactly posterior-friendly for long periods of time. And the Electric Lodge, which hosted the previous production by the Shakti Dance Companey, Dance Yatra, proves yet again to be a wonderful venue for this kind of performance; intimate and capable of supporting the excellent lighting by veteran lighting designer Venkatesh Krishnan.
Like Dance Yatra, Stree Katha lives up to biggest rule of performance: Always leave them wanting more. I cant wait to see whats next.
