Adorned with gold jewellery, ankle bells and vivid colored silks, two teenage dancers from the Jakarta International School gave their debut performance at the Jakarta Arts Building in Pasar Baru on Saturday in front of family and friends.
The two and a half hour performance showcased a range of traditional Bharatanatyam choreography, accompanied by a traditional live band, framed on stage by a model of the ornamental gates of a Balinese Hindu temple.
The night was an important event for the young dancers Maya Gadre and Madhumita Chandrashekhar who have both been studying South Indian Bharatanatyam dance for ten years in preparation for their debut public performance, or Arangetram.
Originating from the court traditions of Southern India, the Bharatanatyam dance form balances elements of expression (bhava), melody (raga) and rhythm (tala) in an intense training regime that includes the study of yoga, Hindu mythology, history, drama and aesthetics.
The main purpose of Bharatanatyam dance is for the performer to evoke rasa, or feeling, in the audience through the precise recital of steps, gestures and facial expressions to offer prayers or convey stories from the great Hindu epics.
After a number of years of training, a dancer’s guru will decide when the student is ready for the Arangetram, or “ascension to the stage”, to make their public debut as an accomplished Bharatanatyam performer. The student will then undergo a year of intensive training in preparation for the performance.
As a symbol of accomplishment, dancers are given painjan, or ankle bells, by the guru for the debut. The Arangetram is usually performed before a sympathetic audience of family and friends who will not judge the student too harshly for any mistakes made in their first public performance, but is still intended as a platform for criticism of both the student and the guru in the interest of developing artistic excellence.
For high school students Maya and Madhumita, the study of Bharatanatyam performance has been a way to learn about their Indian cultural heritage even while studying abroad in Indonesia. The girls were lucky to find Janaki Raj Shrikanth, a Bharatanatyam guru and choreographer at the Prarthna School of Fines Arts who has spent a lifetime studying and practicing the dance form in Kuwait, Singapore and Jakarta.
“That is the wonder of globalization,” said Maya’s mother Uttara Gadre, “that we could find a Bharatanatyam guru for our daughter here in Jakarta, who was visiting from Singapore”.
She added that the inclusion of Balinese temple gates in the set design was an expression of gratitude to Indonesia, where the family have lived for the past eleven years since moving from Minnesota in the United States.
Friends and family travelled from India, Singapore and the US to view the Arangetram performance, with over one hundred guests attending at the grand Jakarta Arts Building hired especially for the occasion.
Guests were welcomed with traditional greetings, sweets, gifts and full-color programmes, and were treated to an evening of world-class music performance, traditional Indian cuisine and an impressive dance recital from the two young students in a range of colorful outfits.
“The Arangetram is an important event,” explained the girls’ guru Janaki Raj Shrikanth. “It’s like a wedding without the groom.”
The extravagant celebration of Arangetrams is a developing trend among the global Indian diaspora, particularly in countries such as the US and the UK. A growing industry has emerged in these countries to service the increasing demand for Arangetram trappings such as costumes, make-up, venues, musicians, and catering. While the number of Arangetrams staged in Jakarta remains small, with Saturday’s performance becoming only the fourth Arangetram to be performed in the city since 2005, interest in Bharatanatyam dance is growing among Jakarta’s Indian population as a way for the youth to explore their cultural heritage.
Critics and cultural purists lament the commercialization of the ceremony, arguing that the focus on lavish displays of wealth over the quality of the performance is detrimental to the artistic integrity of the art form. Others deride Arangetrams in the diaspora as tokenistic performances of Indian cultural identity, and argue that the ceremony is frequently misinterpreted as a “graduation”, or termination of training, rather than the beginning of a lifelong exploration of dance. But Maya and Madhumita’s guru Janaki Raj Shrikanth does not agree.
“There’s nothing wrong with making the celebration a little extravagant when the girls have spent so much time training and preparing for the performance,” she says. “After all, for many young girls the first attraction to Bharatanatyam dance is the beautiful costumes, so why shouldn’t we let them get dressed up, and have the best of it all?”
The guru added that Maya and Madhumita both intend to continue their lessons after the debut performance, exploring more complicated dance steps, trying their hand at some choreography, and undergoing training to become Bharatanatyam teachers themselves.
As for Maya and Madhumita themselves, at only 15 and 17 years of age respectively, preparation for their debut performance was a commitment not taken lightly. The year-long training schedule included extra lessons several times a week, and an intensive training period over the mid-year break from their studies at the Jakarta International School. However, both girls agreed that the achievement of staging the Arangetram in front of family and friends was well worth the extra effort they put into study and training.
In thanking her parents and guru for supporting the performance, Maya commented that she felt privileged to have been given the opportunity to learn about her Indian cultural heritage through her study of Bharatanatyam dance.
“Who would have thought that this ol’ Minnesota girl could get a taste of Indian culture here in Jakarta?” she said.
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