Tangible treasures of intangible art

We all know that dance is an ephemeral art, perhaps more so than any other. More of a musical performance remains in a recording than in the two-dimensional images on a screen of a dance performance with the camera selecting what to focus upon rather than the viewer’s eye. While nothing is ultimately permanent, the printed word, painting, sculpture and architecture are conventionally understood to be accessible long past the creation.

When we dance, the magic is the fission between artist and audience in the moment of creation/presentation. It is both wonderful and poignant that it is gone as soon as created. Yet the affect and memory can linger a lifetime. The intangible takeaways nourish and support us in many ways, but after the applause fades and the roses soon after, what are the tangible mementos that bring validating memories into focus

A pair of Baul gungroos is one such treasure on my shelf. Hitabrata ‘Bachoo’ Roy was the husband of my first Manipuri guru Minati Roy and instrumental in bringing Purnadas Baul and Baul music to the West. To celebrate his birthday, I think 90th, in Shantiniketan just after Paus Mela, both Viswanath Baul and I were offering performances to Bachoo-da and his gathered friends and family. Viswanath Baul was moved by my performance and removed his gungroos and presented them to me. This tribute from a true exponent of the Indian Sufi tradition of Bengal warms my heart every morning as I see it.

I have several shankh conch shells presented on various occasions, some embellished with silver, but the pride of place is the small battered shank presented by Kelubabu, Padmavibhusan guru Kelucharan Mohapatra,to my small daughter. This shank was used in daily Puja in the Cuttack house shrine. After teaching Tara over time to get good consistent tones, he gave it to her and she continued to use it along with his blessings for years. When she briefly studied the French horn in school she was a natural on this challenging instrument, as it requires the same tricky skill as getting sound from a shank shell or shofar.

A perennial pleasure is walking past a watercolour dance portrait presented by a lovely Pittsburgh-based NRI artist based on the photo used in one year’s tour poster. She made the effort to get the original slide transparency from Dr. Balwant Dixit, director of the Indian Classical Music Society, and I was happy to carry it home to Delhi. This painting reminds me of the affection and respect experienced touring internationally.

I deeply treasure the art work given to me by G.R. Santosh, Gaitonde, Shanti Dave, Paramjeet Singh, Satish Gujral, Naresh Kapuria, Narendra Patel, Sarbari Roy Chaudhry, Shanto Dutta, Alka Raghuvanshi and others, but these were given in friendship and not directly because of or related to my dance. Without any doubt, many of my peers and seniors will have far more accumulated mementos than I. Fortunately, I can get all but the largest on several 4-foot-long shelves without needing extra trunks or almiras as they do. Interspersed among these charming presentation pieces and awards is a petite Malaysian pewter vase. It reminds me of the concern of the royal protocol officer to teach me the proper way to do their namaskar variation when the queen would thank me after my performance and present the vase. As a dancer, and at ease with the figure 8 of the head and hands from years of Manipuri, I enjoyed seeing his relief when I got it the first time he showed it!

On the same shelf among the round, rectangular and square shapes, Natarajs and dancing figures with dates, places and sponsors, is an emu egg painted by a prominent aboriginal artist which takes me back to Perth, Australia, an idyllic village masquerading as a city.

My happiness quotient always goes up a notch when I enter my roof terrace and am greeted by the whimsical delights gifted by dear late Nek Chand from his world renowned Chandigarh Rock Garden. He never sold his recycled ceramic and bangle creations but generously gifted them. I think he gave me the first one, a classic man holding his arms behind him encircling a planter, either when I did a Manipuri performance there or later when Amitabha Pande asked me to organise a 3-day festival of dance in the Rock Garden for Old Stephanians.

This recycled ceramic planter man captured my heart so much that a flock of Nek Chand’s ducks and bangle people have joined him. I feel his kindliness and creativity, and gentle crinkly smile, every time I see them.

A fun memento is the framed page of stamps with my photograph and sun sign on the occasion of a World Philatelic Exhibition. More profound are the photographic memories of my departed gurus and their unstinting guru-kripa. A photo of Manipuri Maibi Guru Kumar Maibi was on his wall in Imphal and he graciously took it down and gave it to me when we met after 27 years.

The tangible treasures list is actually almost everything around me: the saris collected from the nooks and corners of India wherever I performed until the overstuffed cupboard begged me to stop, the shelf of autographed books and shelf of books with chapters about or by me, a photo with the Imperial Prince and Princess of Japan thanks to Ambassador Aftab Seth and the Japanese protocol officer making this possible after their warm response to my dance recital for them and, of course, boxes of photos of a life in dance and filing cabinets filled with yellowing newsprint .

All the pleasure of these small material dance treasures are outweighed by the occasional words, “I will never forget seeing you dance” from someone remembering past decades.

Sharon Lowen is a respected exponent of Odissi, Manipuri and Mayurbhanj and Seraikella Chau whose four-decade career in India was preceded by 17 years of modern dance and ballet in the US and an MA in dance from the University of Michigan. She can be contacted at sharonlowen.workshop@gmail.com