An Evening with Ananga the Peruvian Bharathanatyam icon!

 

This programme  aired today was one of the best that I heard in recent times, owing to the honesty and forthrightness of a young artist who could be called truly international. Ananga Manjari Malatesta is a rare Bharathanatyam Dancer from the Perurvian culture with an Italian background. A thoroughly spiritual practicing Hindu, Ananga  came out as being one of the most sensitive global cultural ambassador of Indian Dance form which she has dexterously blended with the native Peruvian dance  forms with the help of her mother who herself is a an artiste par excellence. That Ananga had Ballet background and is conscious of maintaining her form  externally and also her heart internally through spiritual  realisation, has been a great help.

For the first time I also heard someone explaining without  mixing up the dogmas and the usual religious underpinnings as to the practical difficulty in reaching out to her students coming from a different, mostly Christian cultures. "Krishna is completely part of dance expressions in India where one could relate to the  divinity easily, it becomes difficult in cultures like Christianity where the relationship between the  followers and the divine is not based on  love", she says and goes on to explain how she manages to bridge the cultural chasm.     Mother Mary is the Devi equivalent  and  the Dasa and Dasi  way of expressing obeisance  to God almighty  in Indian cultures could be explained by relating to the Christian pursuit of the Divine, he explains.  

In much the same way the dance expressions like Adavu for instance  cannot be taught as a free flow but needs to be nuanced with numbers and words which the students could easily relate to.  The biggest advantage according to her that the Peruvian culture also has the same cultural underpinnings such as the worship of Earth, water, Sun and Nature aspects that are core to the Indian culture as well as the dance form. 

Being an artist with a global footprint and having Gurus drawn from different cultures though being a student of the Indian danseuse Janaki Ramachandran, Ananga could relate to the challenges the artists face both in India and in her own country. "For me Dance makes us a human", she puts it simply. 

In Pandemic times the biggest challenge for the artists to keep themselves motivated which Ananga also lists as her biggest challenge.  And at the same time, both the interviewer Kavya Iyer  choregrapher and dance heritage enthusiast besides being an accomplished dancer and agree that the close down also has given space to reflect deep within and hone the art form. Ananga for one says she is experimenting with Thattadavu big time.  Online of course also is a challenge that needs to be understood  and platforms such as Artscomeonline  and the its curator Shivani Jatar who also is a major Kathak dance icon in Indian dance and culture  are doing a great job in bringing together the artists and infusing new life and direction to  the world of Dance.