Seeing dance as prayer

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Sonal Mansingh, the Natya Kalasikhamani of 2015, talks about dedicating her six performances to the spirit of the city

“The young wife stood on the balcony of their first floor apartment and looked at her husband wading through knee-deep water. She waved and he waved back; they exchanged smiles. But suddenly, he vanished from sight. He had sunk into a manhole. As my friend in Chennai narrated this incident last week about her relative, it made me realise more than ever the need to be aware of what one has,” says Sonal Mansingh, in her soft, measured voice.

Then, the next minute, she says, “Suppose you hear tomorrow that Sonal is no more, you might say, ‘Ah I spoke to her last night, what happened!’ This thought has remained with me since that accident I met with in 1974 — be grateful for each day. Be grateful for the sight, sound, energy, legs and everything else. So do want you want to do. You don’t come to this planet with any guarantees,” she quips, giving a wonderful explanation of why she continues to dance at an age when people would want to put up their feet and watch the sun set with a hot cup of tea in hand.

“I often do that too.” And you hear a hearty laugh. “But how can I not dance! It was for dance that I ran away from home, gave up relationships and underwent pain and humiliation to train hard and excel. It has been my most trusted companion through all the ups and downs,” says the Bharatanatyam and Odissi exponent.

In the aftermath of the flood, Sonal was initially hesitant to go ahead with her performances this Season, but decided to celebrate the spirit of the city that has been so much part of her consciousness and creative growth. “Movements, expressions and statuesque poses are not just about sensuality; they have a meditative quality about them. That is what makes dance a prayer.”

She sees the stage as a magnifier of thoughts. “It makes you experience other lives. It makes you feel love, anger, pain and so much more.”

No less elegant than she was as a young dancer, Sonal, however, sounds different from the bold and assertive woman you came across years ago, who seemed in complete control of her life and choices. She now frequently slips into a philosophical and contemplative mode during conversation. “I have no façade. I am what I am up front. I don’t take myself too seriously. I can laugh a lot about myself. Life and my repertory are works in progress. I have been adding, deleting and changing with time. I learnt to look beyond the proscenium stage from my highly educated guru U. Krishna Rao and his wife Chandrabhaga Devi. They were thinking people, who helped me talk about the art and look at its many layers.”

That is how Sonal became a popular performing artist at SPICMACAY conventions and lec-dems. “It was a sort of extension of my guru’s work. I enjoyed reaching out to the young and the uninitiated. It’s a skill, I realised, to know how much and how to give, otherwise the effort could be counter-productive.”

“Those were different decades,” she continues. “There was excitement about great discoveries. Now so much is seen and heard. The canvas is crowded. But a lot of change is happening. As long as the core is true and strong it’s fine. After all, why should artists shy away from thinking for themselves?”

Counted among the art’s most prominent game-changers because of her progressive approach, Sonal is also someone who revels in nostalgia. “Especially when it comes to Chennai, I like to go back in time…to 1962, when I first staged a Bharatanatyam recital here; to 1968, when I first performed Odissi here. And to that delightful journey across the State with my Bombay-based teacher Jayalakshmi, her husband, children and three other girls, in an old Ford car.”

As for the 2015 Season, the Delhi-based Sonal Mansingh is back in Chennai with a line-up of six performances.