A Map to the Next World - Back Stage
40 min, August 1997
Anita Ratinam muses on intercultural collaborations:
Can a dancer work with a sculptor, a painter, a poet, a filmmaker? In Indian dance we deal
with the aesthetics of form, formalism & a specific structure. We are told that our art is
descended from ancient heritage and that we the performer, are but a vehicle for a higher
awareness. Yet we as individuals live in the present...in the here and now. Our emotions are
governed more by what we read in the papers and what we see on TV and in our everyday
lives than by the stories and mythologies we occasionally represent on stage. We are, as
dancers, always walking that fine line between imagination and logic. Between life and art....
In my art, collaboration is of primary importance. At the core of living we are interdependent.
The ecology of the artistic journey is to reach that point of balance and harmony in which all
faculties are alive and fully expressed.
With famous Native American poet Joy Harjo, I realized that her poetry spoke of her people's
persecution with the white colonizer. Her images were of drugs, gunshot wounds and
substance abuse. What could I a classical Bharatanatyam dancer contribute in this
collaboration since my dance vocabulary did not include these contemporary images? We
were both called by the same name 'Indians', we both shared a colonial history, but we
Indians had assumed responsibility for our own lives unlike the Native American community in
North America. I realized that interculturalism was a state of mind, as much as a way of
working. I was also very aware of the implicit superiority I felt as a bearer of an ancient
culture. With the accumulated arrogance of an Indian heritage I could have easily
overwhelmed her simple yet potent words and emotional music on the saxophone by being
smug and non-inclusive...Would that have satisfied me as an artiste and would that attitude
have helped in creating a truly multi-disciplinary work?
As long as one needs sense of POWER, of control, to suppress others and claim special status,
and needing to be seen as better than the other via one's culture, then one is just not present
in the work or in the world of art. What is needed was insight rather than control ad when that
happens a truly intercultural work can emerge. With Joy Harjo, I discarded all costuming,
elaborate trimmings of cosmetics that accompany our dance traditions and went back to the
basics. Slowing down the movements and finding my body's natural responses to her words
and music, gave me a clue as to how to really proceed without the word to word expression of
her poetry as dancers are trained to do. A MAP TO THE NEXT WORLD was the result of this 4
week collaboration, a piece which lasted only 40 minutes but which was deeply fulfilling with
both artistes emerging with dignity and joy.
In cross cultural collaboration, my work evolves out of layers and layers contributed by these
artists, poets like Joy Harjo, choreographers, composers, musicians and performers. I bring
together and work with all of them to create a unified fabric of the many disciplines. As our
urban cities get more cosmopolitan and multicultural, we as world citizens are constantly
readjusting our lives to accommodate newer people in our midst. And so it is in the area of
culture.
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