Around The World And On The Stage
ONLY FIFTEEN MINUTES into the practice and we knew we were in over our heads. Guru Kal, (short for Kali), a powerful lion of a man, was barking out commands in a rapid and incomprehensible (to us) dialect of Malayalam. Following his direction, we awkwardly threw ourselves to the ground, lunged forward and flew in aerial turns in vaguely yogic sequences of martial choreography. Without any warm-up, we took turns limping to the side of the flagstone floor to nurse our bodies and try to remember what was so appealing about this whole Indian adventure.
From Guru Kal, we were attempting to learn the Indian martial art of kalaripayattu. Kalaripayattu’s choreographed sequences and use of weaponry are accompanied by a developed healing art that includes massage and is not unlike modern sports medicine. Originally from Kerala, this martial art is said to predate all other Asian martial forms and is now performed primarily as a dance much like South American capoeira.
The kalaripayattu class was one of many traditional arts we studied at Theatre Mitu in a three-week South India Artist Intensive held outside Bangalore, India. As members of the Santa Barbara-based theater company Boxtales, we were attending as part of our own hero’s journey to explore the movement and story of India since we are in the midst of building an original stage production based the ancient Sanskrit epic, the Ramayana.
For another perspective on art, we studied mohiniattam, the traditional form of dance from the South Indian state of Kerala that defines feminine beauty and power; it’s the one with side-to-side head isolations, eyebrow raising and comely, seductive smiles. Although traditionally performed by women, men are allowed to study mohiniattam to gain some measure of grace. (With a core membership of three men, Boxtales could use a little of this.) While Boxtales doesn’t faithfully replicate another culture’s art forms, we do incorporate motifs to flavor and inform our characterizations, ultimately creating something original, which we are doing in our theatrical version of the Ramayana.
Before this journey, we’ve worked for years performing myths and folktales from around the world; our most recent production tackled Homer’s Odyssey, setting us on a path through great epics. These stories are often compelling collections of an entire culture’s myths, teaching tales and oral history. Unsurprising, perhaps, to those who know the journey of Sita, Ram, Lakshmana, Ravana and Hanuman, we fell in love with the Ramayana. Like the Odyssey, the Ramayana doesn’t shy away from the intricacies of human circumstance. Its archetypal characters and conflicts play out aspects of the inherent ambiguity between good and evil where psychological complexities are played out in mythological terms. With this in mind, the intensive seemed perfect for us to learn new physical vocabularies, gain insightful cultural perspective and go deeper into a story far less known to us in the West than the Odyssey.
Our breakneck fifteen-hour-a-day, six-daya-week inquiry included daily Yoga instruction in the full spectrum of the path including philosophy asana, pranayama (breath), yama and niyama (austerities and observances) and meditative practices. Experiencing Yoga in this context facilitated the discovery that all of these forms – the religious texts, language, music and dance share a common vocabulary and make up different facets of a core set of ideas. In practice, while in hanumanasana (full splits) one feels Hanuman’s fabled colossal leap to Lanka to rescue Sita, while meditating on humble service to a higher purpose and simultaneously benefiting one’s physical health.
In terms of the socio-political and historical context of the Ramayana, our guide was David Selvaraj, the impassioned director of the Visthar Peace Center, the NGO which housed the Theatre Mitu intensive. When we arrived in India, we did so with a dewy-eyed reverence for the Ramayana; Selvaraj helped us uncover a less precious understanding. Like all religious texts, the Ramayana has complicated psychological, political and social implications. We wrestled with how to view the story after learning how this great and beautiful tome has been used historically as justification for the caste system and for subjugation of women. From the point of view of women attending a concurrent gender studies workshop at the center, the role model of Sita (culturally seen as the perfect woman) has been used to perpetuate a domineering patriarchy. From another view, I couldn’t help but present Sita as the proto-feminist who revolts against the injustices perpetrated against her in the end going against the wishes of her man and God. Overall, from a Western, liberal viewpoint, one can see how a text of this kind can be used to perpetuate complacency under an unjust system.
While we unpack these implications on the rehearsal floor, continuing the process we began with Guru Kal, we are transmuting the Ramayana in a new interpretation – one that will communicate to a modern consumer culture the idea that personal and spiritual power comes from self-sacrifice, and reminds us that to find the balance between light and shadow in each person, there is always a hero’s journey. Michael Andrews is the artistic director and one of the performers in BOXTALES Theatre Company. The group creates adaptations of world mythology for the stage, using traditional storytelling, masks, movement styles and circus skills to bring the tales to life.
The production, Om: An Indian Tale of Good And Evil, will be performed at the Lobero Theatre in Santa Barbara October 1 – 4. For more information, visit: boxtales.org.
By Michael Andrews
