Guru Surendra Nath Jena expressed his Odissi dance through choreography, music composition and poetry. This is one excerpt in his own handwriting. Nirmal Jena, his son, is translating Guruji’s verse and intent from Odiya into English.
Indian Arts
The first recorded dance and theatre treatises, entitled Bharat Natya Shastra, were written between first century BCE and first century CE, representing perhaps the longest tradition of performing and fine arts in the world. Dance rituals in the temples were developed for inner growth. Music has an even longer history than any other art form.
The ideal Artist is thus both Yogi and Priest. As a yogi, he experiences the unboundedness of Consciousness, realizing that he is, in fact, the silent witness of all activity, in truth ‘neither acting nor causing action to be done’ (Bhagavad Gita). At the same time he is like the Vedic priest, through whose ritualized activity and precise expertise are fashioned those forms by which others can aspire to the same realization of wholeness.
Source: Shearer, Alistair The Hindu Vision: Forms of the Formless, 1993 Thames and Hudsons, London
By Marie-Elyane Guillame
Surendra Nath Jena: His evolution from Jatra to Odissi
When he was nine years old Surendra began to attend the Banamali Das theatre where Jatra performers were trained in the art. During the day the building was used as a primary school and at night it took on the garb of a theatre academy with a makeshift stage lit by the glow of torches. A wealthy landlord had sponsored this institution where students, having been at regular school all day were trained by their gurus in the evenings. Their schedules were hard and only those deeply interested participated in this other activity.
Surendra’s break came when a famous actor of the New Orissa Theatre discovered the young lad’s talent and invited him to join the troupe which had many professsionals such as doctors, lawyers and teachers as part of its entourage. Six months of the year they spent on the road leading the nomadic life of Jatra performers. For five years Surendra lived this adventurous, vibrant but exhausting life with fifty other people both men and boys since women had no roles to play. They crossed the countryside on bullock carts laden with stage properties and accessories, punctuated by intense rehearsals, meagre eating and long performances.
When the director died the troupe splintered and broke up. Surendra was seventeen when this happened and found himself lonely, bereft and out of work. He had heard about a temple dedicated to Goddess Saraswati where artistes would go for the divine blessing. He too resolved to undertake a pilgrimage. He handed over the few coins he had to a beggar and began his walk to the temple. Three days and nights he was on the road, sleeping under the sky, eating coarse rice. He was putting himself to the test - this was his penance before appealing to Saraswati for her care and blessings. This divine patron of the arts had convinced him of his impending success. Returning hungry and exhausted but exhilarated, he stumbled upon a stranger, an actor in the Ras party of Gopinathpur, who offered him a place in the repertory company. A blessing indeed...............
Surendra spent the first five years studying the style recreated from the testimony of the old devadasis and gotipuas, the young boys dressed as women who had replaced the devadasis. He also assiduously studied the postures and stances of the wonderful temple sculptures and the symbiotic relationship of man and nature, the spontaneous choreography of everyday life. This study influenced Surendra Nath Jena’s style of Odissi and left its indelible mark.
Soon Surendra left Orissa and moved to Delhi where he started a school with the help of an assistant. A group of students began to gather around Guruji. His repertory grew. He was now doing what he had always dreamed of, independently.
One day Orissa beckoned and Surendra took a trip back home, this time to Konarak. Built in the thirteenth century under the patronage of the Ganga dynasty, this great temple dedicated to the Sun God appears like a carved chariot in motion. The carvings awed Surendra. They symbolized his interpretation of Odissi. The inspiration was so utterly intense; it led to his creation of Konarak. This was in 1968. The dance begins with an invocation to Surya, followed by twelve sculptures from the temple, choreographed deftly into a cohesive whole. The stance and attitude of each of the twelve transformed great sculpture into what was real and living.
Needless to say many other creations followed, all impregnated with realism….Surendra Nath Jena has given his special style a subtle and sensuous beauty which is the essence of Odissi.
Source: Guillame, Marie-Elyane (1986) ‘Surendra Nath Jena: His evolution from Jatra to Odissi’, the India Magazine
By Rebecca Coote
Indian Classical Dance and the Temple of Konarak
Indian classical dance as seen today arises from a history of performance as religious ritual in Hindu temples. The medium of dance executed by a mahari (temple dancer) served as an offering to the deities of the temple. Dance was an auspicious activity deserving illustration in temple decoration. Not only sculptures of gods and goddesses, but many of dancers and musicians covered temple walls. In Orissa, the expression of dance in sculpture reached its peak in the 13th century Temple of Konarak. This complex represented an ancient aspect of Hindu worship, devotion to the Sun God, Surya. The temple is renowned not only for its generous number of dance reliefs, but the magnificent carved chariot of Surya on which it is based.
The Padmakesara Deula Karmangi manuscript, discovered in the Konarak area gives explicit detail on the original daily temple ritual of Konarak. A series of offerings was made throughout the day, carrying a portable bronze image of Surya, the utsava murti, to visit various deities throughout the temple. The dance performance took place as part of the final evening offering. In the dance hall, curd, sugar flowers and the light of the setting sun were presented to the deity. After three calls of the silver trumpet, the temple dancers performed, accompanied by drums. After the performance the image was returned to the inner shrine, accompanied by gongs, trumpets and a parasol.
Dance ritual was granted an exceptionally high status in the structure and decoration of Konarak. The dance hall, natamandira, was a common feature of Hindu temples. However, at Konarak an unusual choice was made to give the structure its own space, unattached to the main temple. An uncommonly large number of dance sculptures covered the walls of the natamandira, the repetition enhancing their power. In contrast to these small lively sculptures stood large, three-dimensional figures of female musicians, high up on the walls of the main temple. The artistic treatment of these figures is particularly interesting. Not only the full body, grand size and perfection of details, but the serene expression and restraint exude the dignity of the deities. Their placement is in the realm of the gods.
The style of dance portrayed in these sculptures is Odissi dance, one of the seven classical Indian dance styles. This art form went into decline, particularly during colonial times. However, since India’s independence a number of gurus have worked to revive this ancient Orissan dance form with the guidance of manuscripts, temple sculptures and information from the few surviving maharis (temple dancers). One such guru was Surendra Nath Jena. His son, Nirmal Jena, founded the Odissi Dance Company with Chitrita Mukerjee in Sydney in 1992 and presently teaches and performs the Jena style of Odissi dance in Sydney.
Surendra Nath Jena’s style clearly demonstrates the influence of temple sculptures. In his first composition, named Konarak, numerous poses are taken directly from the dance sculptures. In such a process, a direct translation of tradition may be confidently achieved because poses such as these have been captured in stone and recorded in drawings of manuscripts. These include instrumental poses demonstrating the playing of the drum, the vina, the cymbals and the flute. Other dance sculptures incorporated into the piece relate to joyous scenes of daily life such as sniffing a flower, looking into a mirror or holding a tree branch. The pleasurable nature of these scenes expresses a celebration of life which befits Surya worship.
However, revival is a complex process. It would be difficult to gain a full appreciation of the traditional dance ritual by only looking at dance sculptures. Dance could never merely be a collection of static poses; the choreographer must thread the poses together into a line of fluid movement. More importantly, a performance is not simply a series of aesthetically pleasing postures executed with fine physical agility, aiming to entertain, but remains a form of worship. In the case of Jena’s Konarak composition, the dance is devoted to Surya and invocations to Surya introduce and finish the piece.
In the rich vocabulary of Indian dance, poses, gestures and feelings must combine to relate the dancer’s purpose, here displaying devotion to Surya. To describe this, Jena has taken elements of iconography relating to Surya in the Konarak temple and translated them into movements in the dance. The main sculpture of the temple, originally placed in the inner shrine, depicted Surya wearing a crown and holding a lotus in each hand. In Konarak, the dancer demonstrates the lotus and stands with hands above the head in a gesture symbolizing the crown. This crown is studded with rubies representing the colour of the Sun. In a delicate moment, the dancer pronounces the beauty of these jewels and expresses the serene state of being immersed in the radiant hue. Through sculpture, the first light of day is embodied in the deity Aruna, the charioteer who is carved as a young boy, the new light. Dawn takes a different form in the dance; the first movement depicts the rays of light arising over the ocean, followed by the gradual opening of a lotus – the Sun blossoming.
Neither dance nor sculpture exists on its own, but are a part of an artistic expression of spirituality. In India’s history, these two art forms have grown in and out of each other – sculpture represented dance (which was then performed amongst the sculptures) and today the dance form has been revived with reference to the sculpture. The essential characteristic so pronounced in both mediums is the essence of life. Within immensely detailed, strict aesthetic codes of execution, each sculptural piece and performance still manages to convey an unspoken power. It is refreshing to see this quality in the Jena style in Sydney today.
Reference:
Boner A & S Rath Sarma, New light on the Sun Temple of Konarak, Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, Varanasi 1972
Dancer Rebecca Coote has spent the past two and one half years with the Odissi Dance Company and has recently embarked on studies of Sanskrit, archaeology and Indonesian at Australian National University.
Source: Coote R (1995) ‘Indian Classical Dance and the Temple of Konarak’ TAASA Review: The Journal of the Asian Arts Society of Australia Volume 4 No. 4 page 16
By Alessandra Lopez y Royo
Excerpt from Performing Konarak, Performing Hirapur: documenting the odissi of Guru Surendranath Jena (an e-documentary)
From May 2005 to May 2006, I worked on a project, funded by the British Academy, which explored the 'transgressive' odissi of guru Surendranath Jena and its relationship with the two archaeological sites of Konarak and Hirapur, in Orissa (Eastern India).
Guru Jena does not claim that his reconstruction is more authentic or purer than other styles of odissi; he acknowledges that his work is a reinterpretation of the dance iconography of the Konarak temple. But he has made a true effort to understand the dynamics of the dance/sculpture interface in the context of Indian dance performance and has created choreographies on that basis. He has also challenged current notions of femininity in odissi dance, creating compositions which explore the raudra (anger) and bhibatsa (disgust) sentiments, usually regarded as un-feminine and thus not suited to the neo-classicism of the dance: for this reason alone, his odissi is regarded as somewhat 'transgressive'.
Initially a member of the Jayantika, the group of gurus who were actively involved in fashioning odispsi in the late 1940s and 1950s, Guru Surendranath (‘Surababu’) moved to Delhi in the 1960s and began to teach at Triveni Kala Sangam. He evolved his own style of odissi, reconstructing it from his interpretation of the dance sculptures of the Konarak temple, which provided him with a dance vocabulary in stone and which he imaginatively exploited to fashion his new dance.
Surababu recounts that the creative stimulus came to him after he travelled to Konarak in the early 1970s with one of his foreign students, Fredérique Apfell Marglin, who was then researching the history of the maharis of Puri. It struck him that the poses of the Konarak nata mandapa could be turned into dance movements. Until then he had taught the standard ‘Jayantika’ odissi but on his return to Delhi he composed Konarak, inspired by the dance narratives of the temple. He then began to reformulate odissi in keeping with his newer insights.
Why is Guru Surendranath’s odissi different? All the odissi gurus claim to have been inspired and guided by Orissan temple sculpture in their remaking of odissi. So, in what way is his odissi different? Surababu’s divergence from other odissi styles and /or schools is significant. The main difference arises from his particular work in converting the sculpture poses into codified movement units and vocabulary.
Typically, in all odissi styles, the iconic poses of the Orissan temple sculptures are linked together through the footwork and gestural language devised by the Jayantika group for the dance, whereby the poses become ‘highlights’ of a dance sequence. In Guru Surendranath’s style, the poses themselves are dynamically stretched and energised, deriving a complex movement unit from the manipulation of the initial static pose. He achieves this by reimagining the ‘missing portions’ of the movements frozen in the sculptures of the Konarak nata mandapa. In his odissi, the basic movement vocabulary is provided by 24 dance movement units, all originating from the Konarak temple.
These units can be further divided into sub-units involving movements of the upper part of the body and movements of the lower part of the body. This process of segmentation and re-assemblage can be more easily visualised if one imagines a horizontal axis along the circumference of the waist cutting the body into a top and a bottom half, and intersecting with a vertical axis which coincides with the straight spine and divides the body into a left and a right half. This imaginary partitioning of the body provides a three-dimensional geometric structure and a planar grid for the projection and extension of each sculpture and its movement.
Why “that man should be jailed…!” Guru Surendranath has named his movement units borrowing the nomenclature from the silpa sastra (treatises dealing with sculpture and architecture) rather than the dance/drama treatises. Scholar Dr Kapila Vatsyayan , who was for many years one of Guru Jena’s students, and among the first to appreciate his iconographic insights and the plasticity of his movements , has discussed his work in terms of karana units. Each unit devised by Guru Surendranath is a karana, but not in the sense of being a reconstruction of any one of the 108 karanas listed in the Natyasastraand seen in the reliefs of, for example, the Southern Indian Chidambaram temple. The karanas of Guru Surendranath are conceptual, in keeping with the definition of karana given in the sastras – a movement of the upper body, a movement of the lower body and a stance – but materially new.
The conceptualisation of dance units based on the Konarak sculptures is not the only distinctive feature of Guru Surendranath Jena’s odissi. Because of the iconicity he visualised for the dance, his basic tribhangi and basic chauka , which characterise odissi, involve deeper bends than seen in other odissi styles. The chauka in particular is performed through a slow lowering movement from middle to low level, down to a squatting position and rising again to mid-level. This is done while retaining the equidistant sideways position of the bent legs, in order to form a square – a chauka – and involving simultaneous side shifts of the torso. His tribhangi is again based on a clear shift of the torso from the central vertical axis, in a way other styles of odissi would regard as exaggerated. Another important feature is the raising and lowering of the body while dancing, creating an undulating effect through a continuous change of level.
So what gets the odissi establishment ruffled? Several things. Unlike other odissi gurus, he does not believe dance-dramas – requiring groups of dancers and a certain kind of acting – really work. Instead, he favours the solo performance, which can have a strong narrative and dramatic content without deploying the dance-drama kind of acting. Worse, Guru Surendranath has choreographed dance pieces in which the abhinaya explores in full force theraudra and bibatsa sentiments (fury and disgust) rather than just suggesting them. This is seen as a serious blow to the notion of odissi as quintessentially feminine, beautiful and sensuous, and it has been dismissed not as merely ‘non-classical’, but as positively ‘anti-classical’ and a subversion of the very notion of odissi classicism. When I raised this with Guru Surendranath, he reminded me of the Chausat Yogini temple at Hirapur (the temple of the sixty-four yoginis) which has inspired him as much as Konarak.
Excerpts from an e-documentary on the Jena style of Odissi
Produced by UK-based Dr Alessandra Lopez y Royo, entitled Performing Konark, Performing Hirapur, supported by the AHRC Research Centre for Crosscultural Music and Dance Performance, an inter-institutional body made up of the Departments of Music and Dance at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of Surrey and the dance program at the School of Arts, Roehampton University
(http://humanitieslab.stanford.edu/51/Home )
By Frédérique Apffel Marglin
Excerpts from Wives of the God-King: The Rituals of the Devadasis of Puri
The teaching of classical dance in Indian cities today is totally divorced from the dance’s roots in the traditional setting of temple worship (p 2).
While learning Odissi in New Delhi I had become aware of the origin of the dance in temple rituals performed by devadasis (p 8).
The devadasis perform twice daily in the temple; in the morning and in the evening. The morning ritual consists of a dance not accompanied by songs. This dance takes place simultaneously with the first major offering in the inner sanctum. This offering includes cooked food; as with all food offerings, it takes place behind closed doors (p 171).
The morning ritual of the devadasis has – besides its overt, exoteric, royal symbolism – a secret, esoteric interpretation……the morning dance of the devadasis is considered to be part of a fivefold Tantric offering to the deities (p 217).
Finally, I want to thank the Oriyan who started it all, my dance master Guru Surendra Nath Jena who taught me Odissi as well as a deep love and appreciation for Orissan culture (p xiv).
Source; Marglin, Frédérique Apffel (1989) Wives of the God-King: The Rituals of the Devadasis of Puri Oxford University Press New Delhi, India
The first recorded dance and theatre treatises, entitled Bharat Natya Shastra, were written between first century BCE and first century CE, representing perhaps the longest tradition of performing and fine arts in the world. Dance rituals in the temples were developed for inner growth. Music has an even longer history than any other art form.
The ideal Artist is thus both Yogi and Priest. As a yogi, he experiences the unboundedness of Consciousness, realizing that he is, in fact, the silent witness of all activity, in truth ‘neither acting nor causing action to be done’ (Bhagavad Gita). At the same time he is like the Vedic priest, through whose ritualized activity and precise expertise are fashioned those forms by which others can aspire to the same realization of wholeness.
Source: Shearer, Alistair The Hindu Vision: Forms of the Formless, 1993 Thames and Hudsons, London
By Marie-Elyane Guillame
Surendra Nath Jena: His evolution from Jatra to Odissi
When he was nine years old Surendra began to attend the Banamali Das theatre where Jatra performers were trained in the art. During the day the building was used as a primary school and at night it took on the garb of a theatre academy with a makeshift stage lit by the glow of torches. A wealthy landlord had sponsored this institution where students, having been at regular school all day were trained by their gurus in the evenings. Their schedules were hard and only those deeply interested participated in this other activity.
Surendra’s break came when a famous actor of the New Orissa Theatre discovered the young lad’s talent and invited him to join the troupe which had many professsionals such as doctors, lawyers and teachers as part of its entourage. Six months of the year they spent on the road leading the nomadic life of Jatra performers. For five years Surendra lived this adventurous, vibrant but exhausting life with fifty other people both men and boys since women had no roles to play. They crossed the countryside on bullock carts laden with stage properties and accessories, punctuated by intense rehearsals, meagre eating and long performances.
When the director died the troupe splintered and broke up. Surendra was seventeen when this happened and found himself lonely, bereft and out of work. He had heard about a temple dedicated to Goddess Saraswati where artistes would go for the divine blessing. He too resolved to undertake a pilgrimage. He handed over the few coins he had to a beggar and began his walk to the temple. Three days and nights he was on the road, sleeping under the sky, eating coarse rice. He was putting himself to the test - this was his penance before appealing to Saraswati for her care and blessings. This divine patron of the arts had convinced him of his impending success. Returning hungry and exhausted but exhilarated, he stumbled upon a stranger, an actor in the Ras party of Gopinathpur, who offered him a place in the repertory company. A blessing indeed...............
Surendra spent the first five years studying the style recreated from the testimony of the old devadasis and gotipuas, the young boys dressed as women who had replaced the devadasis. He also assiduously studied the postures and stances of the wonderful temple sculptures and the symbiotic relationship of man and nature, the spontaneous choreography of everyday life. This study influenced Surendra Nath Jena’s style of Odissi and left its indelible mark.
Soon Surendra left Orissa and moved to Delhi where he started a school with the help of an assistant. A group of students began to gather around Guruji. His repertory grew. He was now doing what he had always dreamed of, independently.
One day Orissa beckoned and Surendra took a trip back home, this time to Konarak. Built in the thirteenth century under the patronage of the Ganga dynasty, this great temple dedicated to the Sun God appears like a carved chariot in motion. The carvings awed Surendra. They symbolized his interpretation of Odissi. The inspiration was so utterly intense; it led to his creation of Konarak. This was in 1968. The dance begins with an invocation to Surya, followed by twelve sculptures from the temple, choreographed deftly into a cohesive whole. The stance and attitude of each of the twelve transformed great sculpture into what was real and living.
Needless to say many other creations followed, all impregnated with realism….Surendra Nath Jena has given his special style a subtle and sensuous beauty which is the essence of Odissi.
Source: Guillame, Marie-Elyane (1986) ‘Surendra Nath Jena: His evolution from Jatra to Odissi’, the India Magazine
By Rebecca Coote
Indian Classical Dance and the Temple of Konarak
Indian classical dance as seen today arises from a history of performance as religious ritual in Hindu temples. The medium of dance executed by a mahari (temple dancer) served as an offering to the deities of the temple. Dance was an auspicious activity deserving illustration in temple decoration. Not only sculptures of gods and goddesses, but many of dancers and musicians covered temple walls. In Orissa, the expression of dance in sculpture reached its peak in the 13th century Temple of Konarak. This complex represented an ancient aspect of Hindu worship, devotion to the Sun God, Surya. The temple is renowned not only for its generous number of dance reliefs, but the magnificent carved chariot of Surya on which it is based.
The Padmakesara Deula Karmangi manuscript, discovered in the Konarak area gives explicit detail on the original daily temple ritual of Konarak. A series of offerings was made throughout the day, carrying a portable bronze image of Surya, the utsava murti, to visit various deities throughout the temple. The dance performance took place as part of the final evening offering. In the dance hall, curd, sugar flowers and the light of the setting sun were presented to the deity. After three calls of the silver trumpet, the temple dancers performed, accompanied by drums. After the performance the image was returned to the inner shrine, accompanied by gongs, trumpets and a parasol.
Dance ritual was granted an exceptionally high status in the structure and decoration of Konarak. The dance hall, natamandira, was a common feature of Hindu temples. However, at Konarak an unusual choice was made to give the structure its own space, unattached to the main temple. An uncommonly large number of dance sculptures covered the walls of the natamandira, the repetition enhancing their power. In contrast to these small lively sculptures stood large, three-dimensional figures of female musicians, high up on the walls of the main temple. The artistic treatment of these figures is particularly interesting. Not only the full body, grand size and perfection of details, but the serene expression and restraint exude the dignity of the deities. Their placement is in the realm of the gods.
The style of dance portrayed in these sculptures is Odissi dance, one of the seven classical Indian dance styles. This art form went into decline, particularly during colonial times. However, since India’s independence a number of gurus have worked to revive this ancient Orissan dance form with the guidance of manuscripts, temple sculptures and information from the few surviving maharis (temple dancers). One such guru was Surendra Nath Jena. His son, Nirmal Jena, founded the Odissi Dance Company with Chitrita Mukerjee in Sydney in 1992 and presently teaches and performs the Jena style of Odissi dance in Sydney.
Surendra Nath Jena’s style clearly demonstrates the influence of temple sculptures. In his first composition, named Konarak, numerous poses are taken directly from the dance sculptures. In such a process, a direct translation of tradition may be confidently achieved because poses such as these have been captured in stone and recorded in drawings of manuscripts. These include instrumental poses demonstrating the playing of the drum, the vina, the cymbals and the flute. Other dance sculptures incorporated into the piece relate to joyous scenes of daily life such as sniffing a flower, looking into a mirror or holding a tree branch. The pleasurable nature of these scenes expresses a celebration of life which befits Surya worship.
However, revival is a complex process. It would be difficult to gain a full appreciation of the traditional dance ritual by only looking at dance sculptures. Dance could never merely be a collection of static poses; the choreographer must thread the poses together into a line of fluid movement. More importantly, a performance is not simply a series of aesthetically pleasing postures executed with fine physical agility, aiming to entertain, but remains a form of worship. In the case of Jena’s Konarak composition, the dance is devoted to Surya and invocations to Surya introduce and finish the piece.
In the rich vocabulary of Indian dance, poses, gestures and feelings must combine to relate the dancer’s purpose, here displaying devotion to Surya. To describe this, Jena has taken elements of iconography relating to Surya in the Konarak temple and translated them into movements in the dance. The main sculpture of the temple, originally placed in the inner shrine, depicted Surya wearing a crown and holding a lotus in each hand. In Konarak, the dancer demonstrates the lotus and stands with hands above the head in a gesture symbolizing the crown. This crown is studded with rubies representing the colour of the Sun. In a delicate moment, the dancer pronounces the beauty of these jewels and expresses the serene state of being immersed in the radiant hue. Through sculpture, the first light of day is embodied in the deity Aruna, the charioteer who is carved as a young boy, the new light. Dawn takes a different form in the dance; the first movement depicts the rays of light arising over the ocean, followed by the gradual opening of a lotus – the Sun blossoming.
Neither dance nor sculpture exists on its own, but are a part of an artistic expression of spirituality. In India’s history, these two art forms have grown in and out of each other – sculpture represented dance (which was then performed amongst the sculptures) and today the dance form has been revived with reference to the sculpture. The essential characteristic so pronounced in both mediums is the essence of life. Within immensely detailed, strict aesthetic codes of execution, each sculptural piece and performance still manages to convey an unspoken power. It is refreshing to see this quality in the Jena style in Sydney today.
Reference:
Boner A & S Rath Sarma, New light on the Sun Temple of Konarak, Chowkhamba Sanskrit Series Office, Varanasi 1972
Dancer Rebecca Coote has spent the past two and one half years with the Odissi Dance Company and has recently embarked on studies of Sanskrit, archaeology and Indonesian at Australian National University.
Source: Coote R (1995) ‘Indian Classical Dance and the Temple of Konarak’ TAASA Review: The Journal of the Asian Arts Society of Australia Volume 4 No. 4 page 16
By Alessandra Lopez y Royo
Excerpt from Performing Konarak, Performing Hirapur: documenting the odissi of Guru Surendranath Jena (an e-documentary)
From May 2005 to May 2006, I worked on a project, funded by the British Academy, which explored the 'transgressive' odissi of guru Surendranath Jena and its relationship with the two archaeological sites of Konarak and Hirapur, in Orissa (Eastern India).
Guru Jena does not claim that his reconstruction is more authentic or purer than other styles of odissi; he acknowledges that his work is a reinterpretation of the dance iconography of the Konarak temple. But he has made a true effort to understand the dynamics of the dance/sculpture interface in the context of Indian dance performance and has created choreographies on that basis. He has also challenged current notions of femininity in odissi dance, creating compositions which explore the raudra (anger) and bhibatsa (disgust) sentiments, usually regarded as un-feminine and thus not suited to the neo-classicism of the dance: for this reason alone, his odissi is regarded as somewhat 'transgressive'.
Initially a member of the Jayantika, the group of gurus who were actively involved in fashioning odispsi in the late 1940s and 1950s, Guru Surendranath (‘Surababu’) moved to Delhi in the 1960s and began to teach at Triveni Kala Sangam. He evolved his own style of odissi, reconstructing it from his interpretation of the dance sculptures of the Konarak temple, which provided him with a dance vocabulary in stone and which he imaginatively exploited to fashion his new dance.
Surababu recounts that the creative stimulus came to him after he travelled to Konarak in the early 1970s with one of his foreign students, Fredérique Apfell Marglin, who was then researching the history of the maharis of Puri. It struck him that the poses of the Konarak nata mandapa could be turned into dance movements. Until then he had taught the standard ‘Jayantika’ odissi but on his return to Delhi he composed Konarak, inspired by the dance narratives of the temple. He then began to reformulate odissi in keeping with his newer insights.
Why is Guru Surendranath’s odissi different? All the odissi gurus claim to have been inspired and guided by Orissan temple sculpture in their remaking of odissi. So, in what way is his odissi different? Surababu’s divergence from other odissi styles and /or schools is significant. The main difference arises from his particular work in converting the sculpture poses into codified movement units and vocabulary.
Typically, in all odissi styles, the iconic poses of the Orissan temple sculptures are linked together through the footwork and gestural language devised by the Jayantika group for the dance, whereby the poses become ‘highlights’ of a dance sequence. In Guru Surendranath’s style, the poses themselves are dynamically stretched and energised, deriving a complex movement unit from the manipulation of the initial static pose. He achieves this by reimagining the ‘missing portions’ of the movements frozen in the sculptures of the Konarak nata mandapa. In his odissi, the basic movement vocabulary is provided by 24 dance movement units, all originating from the Konarak temple.
These units can be further divided into sub-units involving movements of the upper part of the body and movements of the lower part of the body. This process of segmentation and re-assemblage can be more easily visualised if one imagines a horizontal axis along the circumference of the waist cutting the body into a top and a bottom half, and intersecting with a vertical axis which coincides with the straight spine and divides the body into a left and a right half. This imaginary partitioning of the body provides a three-dimensional geometric structure and a planar grid for the projection and extension of each sculpture and its movement.
Why “that man should be jailed…!” Guru Surendranath has named his movement units borrowing the nomenclature from the silpa sastra (treatises dealing with sculpture and architecture) rather than the dance/drama treatises. Scholar Dr Kapila Vatsyayan , who was for many years one of Guru Jena’s students, and among the first to appreciate his iconographic insights and the plasticity of his movements , has discussed his work in terms of karana units. Each unit devised by Guru Surendranath is a karana, but not in the sense of being a reconstruction of any one of the 108 karanas listed in the Natyasastraand seen in the reliefs of, for example, the Southern Indian Chidambaram temple. The karanas of Guru Surendranath are conceptual, in keeping with the definition of karana given in the sastras – a movement of the upper body, a movement of the lower body and a stance – but materially new.
The conceptualisation of dance units based on the Konarak sculptures is not the only distinctive feature of Guru Surendranath Jena’s odissi. Because of the iconicity he visualised for the dance, his basic tribhangi and basic chauka , which characterise odissi, involve deeper bends than seen in other odissi styles. The chauka in particular is performed through a slow lowering movement from middle to low level, down to a squatting position and rising again to mid-level. This is done while retaining the equidistant sideways position of the bent legs, in order to form a square – a chauka – and involving simultaneous side shifts of the torso. His tribhangi is again based on a clear shift of the torso from the central vertical axis, in a way other styles of odissi would regard as exaggerated. Another important feature is the raising and lowering of the body while dancing, creating an undulating effect through a continuous change of level.
So what gets the odissi establishment ruffled? Several things. Unlike other odissi gurus, he does not believe dance-dramas – requiring groups of dancers and a certain kind of acting – really work. Instead, he favours the solo performance, which can have a strong narrative and dramatic content without deploying the dance-drama kind of acting. Worse, Guru Surendranath has choreographed dance pieces in which the abhinaya explores in full force theraudra and bibatsa sentiments (fury and disgust) rather than just suggesting them. This is seen as a serious blow to the notion of odissi as quintessentially feminine, beautiful and sensuous, and it has been dismissed not as merely ‘non-classical’, but as positively ‘anti-classical’ and a subversion of the very notion of odissi classicism. When I raised this with Guru Surendranath, he reminded me of the Chausat Yogini temple at Hirapur (the temple of the sixty-four yoginis) which has inspired him as much as Konarak.
Excerpts from an e-documentary on the Jena style of Odissi
Produced by UK-based Dr Alessandra Lopez y Royo, entitled Performing Konark, Performing Hirapur, supported by the AHRC Research Centre for Crosscultural Music and Dance Performance, an inter-institutional body made up of the Departments of Music and Dance at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of Surrey and the dance program at the School of Arts, Roehampton University
(http://humanitieslab.stanford.edu/51/Home )
By Frédérique Apffel Marglin
Excerpts from Wives of the God-King: The Rituals of the Devadasis of Puri
The teaching of classical dance in Indian cities today is totally divorced from the dance’s roots in the traditional setting of temple worship (p 2).
While learning Odissi in New Delhi I had become aware of the origin of the dance in temple rituals performed by devadasis (p 8).
The devadasis perform twice daily in the temple; in the morning and in the evening. The morning ritual consists of a dance not accompanied by songs. This dance takes place simultaneously with the first major offering in the inner sanctum. This offering includes cooked food; as with all food offerings, it takes place behind closed doors (p 171).
The morning ritual of the devadasis has – besides its overt, exoteric, royal symbolism – a secret, esoteric interpretation……the morning dance of the devadasis is considered to be part of a fivefold Tantric offering to the deities (p 217).
Finally, I want to thank the Oriyan who started it all, my dance master Guru Surendra Nath Jena who taught me Odissi as well as a deep love and appreciation for Orissan culture (p xiv).
Source; Marglin, Frédérique Apffel (1989) Wives of the God-King: The Rituals of the Devadasis of Puri Oxford University Press New Delhi, India
