Conversations with Raka Maitra

This is a critical essay on Variations On A Theme by Raka Maitra, presented as part of The Substation’s Associate Artist Showcase.

Conversations with Raka Maitra
Written by Stephanie Burridge
June 2010

“It is most exciting and challenging to create something new…to take risks and accept that sometimes it might not work…to explore new themes and concepts to see how I respond to them.” – Raka Maitra

Modern Dance in India has a relatively short history. With growing interactions between dance practitioners and scholars all over the country and even the world, and coupled with an increasing awareness of important contemporary issues, many classical dancers have also stepped into the realm of contemporary dance through the exploration of one or several dance styles.

Aside from being trained in the classical style of Odissi under Padmashree Madhavi Mudgal and having attended advanced workshops with Guru Kelucharan Mahapatra, The Substation’s Associate Artist, Raka Maitra, is also schooled in Serraikella Chhau under the tutorship of Guru Sashadhar Acharya. Odissi combines basic postures like the chowk (square) and the tribhang (the three bends of the body) with intricate footwork – the postures often working in opposition in the body creating tensions across diagonals from the head, the hands, elbows, knees and feet. Although she no longer performs Indian classical dance performances for the past one year to focus solely on contemporary work, this rich dance heritage remains the cultural root of Maitra’s own Indian contemporary work.

Maitra is a well known Indian contemporary dance artist in Singapore and around the Asia Pacific region, building up her name through performances of full length works such as Boundaries … Dreams … Beyond (2008) and Circular Ruins (2009). More than that, she is an activist for Indian Contemporary dance and one of the creators of the Grey Festival in Singapore, a dance festival and forum held annually at The Substation that invites performative and educational dialogue on this form.

Maitra is an avid reader and is often inspired by literature; Circular Ruins, a short story by Argentinian author, Jorge Luis Borges, inspired a similarly titled collaborative performance with Javanese dance master, Bambang Besur Suryono, in 2009.

“Most people are a little confused with what I do… when they ask me I tell them I’m an Odissi dancer doing contemporary work…so they do get a bit confused. A lot of classical Indian dancers think I do western dance and a lot of non-Indians just assume I’m a classical dancer doing just traditional performances…I want to create movements that are interesting and honest- sometimes I don’t know whether it can be classified as ‘dance’ or just movements.”- Raka Maitra

Maitra now finds it easier to create works outside of India. In India, there is an increasing divide between classical and contemporary dance. To an extent, there is stagnation as it is difficult for people to move forward for various reasons such as the entrenchment of ideas and the dominance of seminal figures who make it difficult for the younger generation to be heard creatively through performance platforms and choreographic opportunities.

A new creative experience for Maitra is for her to be influenced entirely by music rather than by a narrative or theme. Her latest creation, Variations On A Theme, is abstract and fluid as she is working to the famous Goldberg Variations by J.S. Bach, a favourite with choreographers from avant-garde Canadian choreographer, Marie Chouinard, to Andrea Bibolotti for the Swiss Ballet Basel. First published in 1741, the piece is considered to be one of the most important examples of the “variation” form; Bach had incorporated 32 in this masterpiece. Unlike these Western choreographers, Maitra selected 12 variations and combined them with the music of Indian Dhrupad, a vocal genre in Hindustani classical music, purported to be the oldest genre in use in this musical tradition. Seemingly a monumental task, she has managed to connect Hindi rhythms with Bach’s cadenzas from Variations on a Theme, and has worked closely with her sound designer, He Yin, to time each section exactly, to create a conversation between the two tracks, the dancer and the music. Chan Man Loon has also been a key collaborator, creating visuals to be projected on two screens during the dance, visuals which are based on Maitra’s previous works and which also represent the creative journey of the dancer. These visuals include a mix of still photographs and video placed in geometric, structured patterns, synchronised with the music, adding another layer to this already complex work. Variations On A Theme is an ambitious and challenging project which Maitra admits might be daunting and which might possibly “overshadow the dance”.

To construct the new work, Raka Maitra is working methodically through the structure and vocabulary of Odissi in a very meticulous and exhaustive process. It is a liberating yet slow process that has enabled Maitra to get to the core of the body, her Odissi background training and her “Indianess^”. “It is just dance”, she says, yet the process is intense and exacting, involving the dissection and deconstruction of the hundreds of small details that constitute the exercises of the classical Odissi vocabulary. Multiple movements make up the core of the dance that fundamentally has no meaning when it is de-contextualised in this manner. Form, derived from the sequencing of blocks of movement, and structural patterns are juxtaposed in the vocabulary that considers pallavi (elaboration), realised primarily through the rhythms, pace and nuances of the complex music. This exacting process is disciplined and thorough, relying on mathematical precision rather than the free expression of improvisation and simple movements in response to the music. Maitra records each rehearsal session’s progress on video in order to review, select and construct her work. Eschewing narrative, sentimentality and trend, it is an ambitious, solitary research process, carried out between the dance and the dancer, which, in a way, condenses her journey as an artist.

Maitra’s Variations On A Theme encapsulates the innovation that emerges from working with tradition to create new contemporary dance. The deep knee bends, precise footwork and hand gestures are present in the choreography, but they begin to evolve and take on a new “language”, which is a contemporary construction of the artist. Sometimes magical and deeply grounded in training, this “language” begins to flow in as abstract expressions of movement to two great musical canons of the East and the West. It is extraordinary how this “language” actually comes alive to Bach’s music and yet, when it catches a rhythm, or when a beat of the Dhrupad coincides with a stamp of a foot, it asserts itself powerfully in an Indian context. It is a celebration of dance – abstract contemporary movement grounded in an Odissi tradition and training – that has bridged cultural histories, places and times.