In this essay, I will elaborate on Trent Kim’s exposition on light, stagecraft, space and network, but will do this by focusing attention on the traditional oil lamp, known as Kuthu-villaku in South India, hereafter KV.
Kim’s provocation is inspiring. It enabled me to think about my own personal crisis generated around the KV oil light and stage light, which I perceived within a binary framework of Indian tradition versus Western modernity in the early 1980s.
If the KV oil light represented the god-time of Indian modernity for me, the proscenium stage light, emanating from Edison’s discovery of the incandescent light bulb, belonged to the time of Western modernity. Both lights co-existed, paradoxically, on the Indian proscenium since the time of the Indian national dance revival in the 1930s, the history of which I provide in my historical exposition following this introduction. It is the juxtapositioning of both lights that created a theatrical crisis for me in the 1980s and resulted in a breakdown of sorts that changed my life irrevocably.
Although I did not see my theatrical crisis as a nervous breakdown, I knew it was something that I could neither deny nor ignore. I thus decided to take a break from dancing–something I had been doing since the age of three and with view to think about god and stage lights, historically, philosophically and aesthetically. While the soft, natural god-light emanating from the oil lamp created hallows around me and imbued me with depth, the stage light objectified, flattened and hollowed my identity both as a woman and dancer. I wanted to choose the ‘light’ that would work best for me as a woman dancer. But to do this I had to pause, to cease dancing on the dance proscenium and rethink my life from outside this institution. I was not to know then that my theatrical crisis would remain as a trace and haunt my life as a dancer-scholar for decades and long after the passing of the immediate crisis.
To embark on this conversation with light, I ended my arranged marriage, packed my KV lamp, dancing bells and icon of Siva in my travelling suitcase and left for the US. I enrolled in a Masters programme in Austin Texas in 1984, where I created my first contemporary dance theatre choreography entitled Matsya (Fish). The work theatricalized my impossible and hallucinatory desire for a god who promised to come but never did: so many times we called to you, Matysa, Oh Matsya!
In 1988, I enrolled in the PhD programme in the Tisch School of Arts at NYU and embarked on my doctoral research, which was focussed on devadasis (temple dancers), god, the icon of Siva/Nataraja, colonial and Indian modernity, and how these master-narratives enabled the historic transformation and modernization of Sadir into Bharatanatyam through the long period of colonial rule ending with decolonization in the1950s (Meduri 1996).
In my first ever academic publication entitled ‘Bharatanatyam: What are You?’ which has seen several reprints, I wrote a script for my inaugural theatrical crisis, spoke about god and the question of choice in a woman’s life, but I could not speak about the trauma caused by the doubled lights because the essay was not about myself, but the postcolonial field of performance that I wished to interrogate (Meduri 1988).
In my doctoral thesis (1996), I alluded to the trauma of the doubled lights, but could not provide detail because ‘I’ was not the subject of my dissertation. I had, besides, been transformed myself, into a hyphenated subject, namely, a dancer-scholar immediately after the completion of my dissertation in 1996.
My split identity was consolidated, legally, when I received my Green Card under the American O-1a Visa category reserved for Aliens of Extraordinary Achievements and Abilities in 1996. Although the O-1a visa enabled me to live and work in the US, albeit under the new splitting category of the dancer-scholar, it also disempowered me as I could not speak about my original trauma with the doubled lights. Not only was I estranged from the life of a professional dancer, but my peers perceived me as being more of a scholar than a dancer. This was unfortunate as I myself lived and worked in the liminal place of the hyphen.
In 1996, I adapted my doctoral thesis into a bilingual play, entitled, GoD has Changed His Name, translating my role as dancer-scholar into performance.The image below captures my hyphenated subjectivity, theatrically.
Since I was playing the role of the dancer-scholar in the play, I could not speak about my original trauma with the doubled lights. Looking back, I can see that I projected my trauma on to the historical figure of the devadasi (temple dancers) and told the story of their disempowerment through the symbol of the western camera. The play described how this technological instrument was used as a ‘tool of empire’ that objectified devadasi women, turning them under western eyes into nautch girls and dancing girls and so facilitating their misidentification as prostitutes. This misnaming, realized in the scopic register and consolidated in what I described as white ink, disenfranchised devadasi women as historical subjects in the long nineteenth century (Meduri 2018).
In 2000, I embarked on new research revolving around the three women of the Theosophical Society, Madame Blavatsky, Annie Besant and Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904-1986) pioneer revivalist of twentieth century Bharatanatyam. Although I could not speak about my original trauma with the doubled lights even in this research, I realized, with a shock, that it was Rukmini Devi Arundale who had, unwittingly, created my theatrical crisis in the 1980s by juxtaposing god-light with stage light in her debut performance in 1935. I encapsulate this history in the second part of this essay. https://avanthimeduri.wordpress.com/about/
I have provided this narrative to show how the original trauma with the doubled lights has haunted my life as dancer-scholar for over three decades.
I decided to speak about my theatrical crisis in this inaugural issue in order to encourage dancer-scholars, and artists to step forward and speak about the complex, doubled histories theatricalized in the metaphor of god and stage light.
Both the oil and stage lights are powerful symbols of divergent modernities: while the oil light hallows us as dancers, the stage light hollows us out as dancers; together the two lights create both abundance and loss in our lives. I think it is time for dancers to speak about the double-binds foregrounded in this conjoined history of lights and evaluate their cumulative impact on our lives as women dancers dancing god stories on ghostly stages around the world.
In the next section, I provide a historical narrative that explains how dancers cojoin god-light and stage-light and facilitate their coexistence on global stages around the world.
Looking Back, Looking Forward
Classical Indian dancers carry KV silver and brass lamps, along with the icons of divinity, in their travelling suitcases and use these as central stage props in their Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kathakali, Manipuri, Kuchipudi, Mohiniattam, Odissi, and Satrriya recitals now performed around the world.
On the given day of the public performance, dancers place the KV oil lamp next to the icon of Siva, Krishna, or Vishnu, mount both stage props on a low pedestal and place these in the downstage left corner of the global proscenium (Meduri 2010).
Dancers are fully aware of the risk posed by the open flame of KV oil lamps on the proscenium stage. Yet they continue to honor this tradition of ‘lighting the lamp’ because it is a historical convention, inscribed in a double reed civilizational history, hearkening back at once to a seventeenth-century tradition as well as the modern history of what is known as the twentieth century national revival of Indian classical dance of the 1930s (Allen 2010; Meduri 2010).
Prior to the advent of British colonial rule in India, India’s classical dance theatre forms were staged in temple and court venues. They were patronized by kings, elite patrons and temple administrators. Because revenues from temple and court had been usurped by the colonial government, India’s performance traditions languished from lack of sustained economic support through the long nineteenth century. Koodiyattam and Kathakali performances, for example, continued to be staged within the precincts of the temple and in front of five feet bronze lamps, known as kali-villaki. Oil provided the main source of illumination for these evening length performances https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9eOS5fsCy1o
In the twentieth century, Edison lighting technologies, inscribed in the history of both empire and Western modernity, were incorporated randomly into diverse performance venues. The new lighting technologies not only transformed darkness into light, artificially, but this single instrument, effectively, created the new world of the twentieth century performance. While artificial lighting technologies enhanced the aura of Ballet and Western theatre arts and elevated these into art forms in the early twentieth century, the same technologies Orientalized India’s performance traditions and staged these as ‘archaic’ traditions in need of aesthetic modernization.
During the period of what is known as the national revival of Indian performing arts, pioneer revivalist Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904-1986), the founder of Kalakshetra, a premier national centre for Indian performing arts, revived Bharatanatyam and Kathakali as historical forms by creating what I have described as temple stage setting for Bharatanatyam (Meduri 2010; Allen 2010). https://www.kalakshetra.in/newsite/
Rukmini Devi created this stage setting by appropriating the electrical spotlight, which manifested itself as a both a tool of empire and British stage craft, and Indianized it by juxtaposing it with the flickering light of the traditional KV oil lamp.
By juxtaposing the two staging lights, belonging to two divergent histories, Rukmini Devi created a new equivalence between Indian tradition and colonial modernity even while opening up new intercultural dialogues between natural and artificial lighting from a Global South perspective (Meduri 2005; 2010).
Recently, I was intrigued to see the KV temple lamp staged as a stand-alone prop on the mainstage of Sadler’s Wells in London. The lamp was moved from its traditional place beside the god icon. LED bulbs were fitted carefully into the spouts of the KV lamp. The KP lamp itself was not placed on a pedestal, but hung with the help of invisible stage wires in the downstage left corner of the stage.
The stage effect was stunning because a single shaft of low beam light was used to create what used to be known in theatre parlance as the god-effect. The artificial light not only replaced natural light, but also technologized the KV lamp and facilitated its ahistorical incorporation into the spatial history of the Western proscenium stage.
Conclusion
Which light—KV oil light or electrical stage light–empowers the twenty -first century global dancer dancing on global stages today? While some dancers prefer to use the technologized KV lamp in international venues, still others continue to use the KV oil lamp in public recitals.
Although both stage lights are part of the contemporary history of classical dance forms, it is unclear why dancers and scholars have not rigorously interrogated the issues around ‘light.’
As stated in the introduction, I believe that the time is right to speak about the secrets at once hidden and embodied in the doubled lights and evaluate their combined impact on the lives of generations of classical dancers enacting god stories on global stages around the world.
I believe that these testimonies will not only create new global networks of creative collaboration and knowledge exchange, but these narratives could conceivably revolutionize our thinking about theatre performance in the 21stcentury. This rich study is waiting to be researched, documented and disseminated in new digital formats and on a scale unimagined in traditional forms of scholarship and publication.
References
Allen Matthew (2010) ‘Rewriting the Script for South Asian Dance,’ In Bharatanatyam: A Reader, edited by Devesh Soneji, 253-273. New Delhi: Oxford University Press pp 205-252.
Meduri, Avanthi. (1988). “Bharatha Natyam: What Are You?” Asian Theatre Journal 5 (1): 1-22.
Meduri, Avanthi. (1996). “Nation, Woman, Representation: The Sutured History of the Devadasi and Her Dance 1856-1960.” Ph.D. dissertation, New York University.
Meduri, Avanthi. (2005). “Introduction: A Critical Overview,” In Rukmini Devi Arundale (1904-1986): A Visionary Architect of Indian Culture and the Performing Arts, edited byAvanthi Meduri, New Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass pp 3-29
Meduri Avanthi (2010). ‘Bharatanatyam as World Historical Form. In Bharatanatyam: A Reader, edited by Devesh Soneji, New Delhi: Oxford University Press pp.253-273.
Meduri Avanthi (2018) ‘Interweaving Dance Archives,’ Devadasis, Bayaderes, and Nautch Girls of 1838’, in Movements of Interweaving, Dance and Corporeality, (eds). Gabrielle Brandstetter, Gerko Egert, and Holger Hartung, London. Routledge pp. 299-320.
DOI https://doi.org/10.4324/9781351128469