Classical dances also evolve over a period and small changes are slowly adopted into the content. The gradual process through which it evolves gets accepted by the connoisseur and public, equally. However, to the process of evolution, to the pace, there is a limitation too... The belief and the expectation from the general public is quite visible.
Even for an accomplished dancer who travels widely and who gathers the best of the elements found and expected in different parts of the world of a certain perfection and sophistication, when they try to employ such learning into their dance, this the limitation has to be borne in the mind. The unease in the scholarly and the general public is quite easy to perceive, call it resistance or clear disapproval.
I recently received a message (among some more) from an attendee of such a classical dance performance who was very upset about the presentation of a mythology being stretched in the visual narrative. That the same dance production attracted critical evaluation of this evolution when it was presented in India, was safely ignored by the dancer and presented in the same format in the US.
Similar messages with different intensity are quite common to my inbox as also appreciation to the more conservative dancer who carefully builds repertoire of the established traditional. I therefore believe this trend is quite extensive.
The learning to me from this episode is that "not all criticism is to be ignored", don't over-dance and overtake the general public's perception. A subtle reminder to those who over-stretch perhaps..!
papers, contributor, june2015, classical dance, evolution, copyright acknowledged, do not copy, (C), priyalasya,
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