Song of India

Over the intricate rhythms of drums hovered the fluid notes of a single bamboo flute and the wailng chant of a solo male voice. Against a plain black backdrop swirled brilliantly costumed dancers, unfolding exotic tales of lust and vengeance, ecstasy and evil. The occasion: the Broadway opening, prior to a U.S. tour, of the Indian dance group headed by Shanta Rao (rhymes with wow).

As the visitors from India danced and acted, good always triumphed, and whoever got his comeuppance was lucky to be merely killed. In one Kathakali (story-play), a demigod suffered a fate worse than death (because he rejected a nymph's advances); he was transformed into a creature half man, half woman. In another dance-drama an unbelieving king was devoured by the god Vishnu, who relished every morsel--as red streamers representing the king's innards were clawed out of his corpse.

In India, productions of Kathakali cause audiences to curse the bad guys (red-bearded) and cheer the good guys (green-faced). Broadway audiences were less demonstrative but found that the blood-and-wonder spectacle had color, dash, the spice of novelty and the charm of skillfully stylized performances.

One Dancing Eyebrow. For centuries, the Indian dance lay fallow in half-forgotten temples. But as India rose to national consciousness and independence, the art was deliberately revived by such devotees as Dancer Rao.

In New York last week, besides Kathakali (about 1,000 years old in some forms and hence a Johnny-come-lately), the Rao troupe also danced the nearly 4,000-year-old Bharata Natyam (the Drama of Bharata). High point of the program: Mohirti Attam (the Dance of the Enchantress), in which Dancer Rao proved herself a virtuoso performer. This dance had become so corrupted and eroticized by courtesans that it had been banned from the temples. Shanta, swathed in dazzling silk, danced it in its uncorrupted style, although her weaving, swaying interpretation was still sexy in a highly stylized way.

Unlike Western ballet, where the body is revealed, these Indian dancers never put the body on display. Theirs is an art of angles rather than curves. To shape the angles, Indian performers exercise muscles not usually used by Western dancers. Hands are incessantly occupied with mudras, the eloquent and elegant Hindu language of the hands. Head, neck, facial muscles, eyes, even eyebrows contribute. To reveal only the whites, wide-eyed dancers conceal the iris under the upper or lower lid, and Shanta Rao can make either one of her eyebrows dance up her forehead while the other is kept immobile. Fourteen Eye Movements. Mangalore-born Dancer Rao functions from her painted soles through her tinkling, braceleted ankles, right up to the bejeweled crown of her coal-black hair. She began training for her art at the age of twelve, when she started practicing the 14 principal movements of the eyes every morning at 2:30 and finished her dance exercises every night at 11. At 16 she relaxed, did not start her day's work until 5:45 a.m., nowadays still begins at the same hour. A fanatic of the dance, Shanta Rao insists that a dancer should be able to run through the whole gamut of emotions with the wordless movements of her body. "If I say 'I love you,' I should be able to show it in different ways if you are a girl or a god. If I am evil, I want you to feel like killing me." But when asked by eager Westerners about the "spirituality" of Indian dancing, Shanta Rao replies, her well-trained eyes twinkling: "I am bereft of spirituality. I only know work and sweat."

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