Reflections on 2023

Collective Shivarathri

The students of Kalavriksha Dance Centre shared their practice at the durational event at Collective Space in Toronto organized by Anandam DanceTheater. The students found this experience important in understanding shared space with other dancers and audience members. It also opened an opportunity to talk through the process of each other’s dance practices. 

I shared a remount of my work within the framework of Bharatanatyam that was choreographed in 2001. This short piece was an experimentation of composing dance to contemporary Tamil poetry written by poet Tamarai that holds love and freedom of choice for women. The process was to find this poetry in my current practice and observe the views and shifts in my practice. 

March Dance

2023 was a learning, thinking, participating, and exploring year. The travel to India for the March Dance festival to participate in the Prana textbook reconstruction Workshop of Chandralekha in Chennai was one such experience. The workshop was under the directions of Meera Krishnamurthy, Krishna Devanandan and Padmini Chettur. The brilliant workshop was to examine, learn and continue to hold the curiosity of the choreographic ideas of Chandraleka that was deeply awareness-focused for the participants. 

The hot summer month of May in Chennai

More art was present in everyday life as I photographed my father A. Nagarajan’s paintings and drawings – almost 200 of them.  I take inspiration from his organized way of working, archiving and keeping notes of his ideas and the number of works. His paintings from 2019 through the pandemic to 2023 were photographed. The paper drawings are his student years’ work from 1956 to 1958 – the ones that have been saved to this date (the rest of the papers are falling apart). It was an experience to hear his memories of his student life at the Government College of Fine Arts, Chennai. My observations are that most of the people on the drawings were working-class physically labouring people and their willingness to model for the decent pay (2₹ per hour) and the restful time they get while modelling. As a dancer, I am also observing their bodies through these drawings and trying to understand the living aspects of the people and the social spectrum. 

I spent time reading my mother Krishangini’s translation works from Hindi to Tamil. Her works are predominantly on translating Dalit Hindi works into Tamil. Some of the poetries had a deep impact while holding the book in my hand and reading. As a person of Indian origin living in the diaspora for almost two decades has its impact and shifts. To be physically present in India and read while sharing and living life with dalit people – that which is different in diasporic life has a density to it. 

I was also looking at all the books that I was introduced to as a child – European contemporary art books, Indian art and sculpture books and yoga books. My introduction to yoga was through watching live yoga demonstrations by white people (in Puducherry) and the books that were printed in New York and Toronto Canada that showed nude or comfortably clothed people doing asanas. As a young girl growing up in India, I never noticed the connection between yoga and North America or white people doing yoga in India. All the arts, literature and yoga introductions were normalized as part of my childhood. Nudity was also a normal part of life through paintings drawings yoga and watching humans. More than nostalgia it was critical thoughts and art conversations with my parents, and the time spent with books that filled a creative thinking space. Of course, the very hot month of May with the heat wave made it impossible for me to move my body on some days.  

Professional Development – Kalaripayattu, Somatic Practice & Yoga

This has been a year of professional development with the support of the Canada Council for the Arts. I worked on experiencing/training in martial arts Kalaripayattu intensely in person and online with Vikas Gurukal (India) for a few months. Entered into somatic practice Feldenkrais – Awareness Through Movements and Iyengar Yoga with Stephanie Tencer (Toronto) who is gently encouraging me to be an intermediate level 1 student. I am working through self-somatic practice that is body-led with sensitive/sharp physical and physiological awareness that is slowly moving towards opening the body and mind with rigour and beautiful experiences. 

Holding all the experiences that 2023 has opened, I am deeply thinking about body, movement and choreography. The body as material in my contemporary works is a space of profound rethinking, re-learning and re-doing by deconstructing my training/practice and dancing with a deep awareness that finds renewed movements practice technique and structure with artistic tangibility. Time for developing and thinking about dance is as important as creating and presenting works. This is initiating me to open dance conversations and new creations in the coming years 2024 and 2025. 

• Neeraja Ramani – Dancer Choreographer Teacher