Indian Bharatanatyam dancer and vocalist Geeta Chandran, Bharatnatyam and Odissi dancer, Sonal Mansingh and one half of the khayal-singing brother-duo, Rajan Mishra discussed body and mind in classical art at an event, The Pendulam Clock. The event was organised at Stein Auditorium at the Indian Habitat Centre.
Geeta Chandran: The connection between mind and body is very important for an artiste or a performer. When we learnt the dance form, we never differentiated between body and mind. It was one whole and always went hand in hand. From the first day we have been taught that it’s not a body-body exercise but is a joint exercise of mind and body. A classical dancer does three types of exercise. So in dance, it’s clear that the mind and the body are interconnected. But the problem in dance is that the person before you or the audience only sees your body. The artist may have a beautiful or a brilliant mind but if the body is not supporting him or her because of some reason, people say that the dancer is not worth watching. I somewhere feel that for a dancer, the body is at the forefront or the main vehicle. As the age of the dancer increases, the mind has so many ideas but the body does not support the dancer. When poetry and music come in, suddenly your spirit wakes up which helps your mind develop and relieve stress.
Rajan Mishra: When it comes to mind and body, the visualisation is most important. For an artist, the mind works with body and vice versa. It is the viewer’s perception and the experience with which he judges the artist. For example, if a person has no experience of paintings and if he sees any painting, he cannot judge it or cannot get the real message as to what the painter wants to convey. Humans have five senses and after the senses, there are emotions. They help a being do everything above the senses and then there is the spirit, which is the most important. It is considered most important as the spirit is above all — whether it is the senses or the emotions. A person is called a good-spirited person if he rises above all, even if his senses do not work properly or if he doesn’t have emotion.
Sonal Mansingh: I spent my whole life dancing. During the initial phase when I started dancing, my guru told me that it is equally important to dance with your mind as your body. You can use your body for the movements but when you start dancing with your mind, you start to get new ideas and you can develop your own talent. Not only for dance or any artist, but it’s true for every person. One sentence can have different meanings and it totally depends on our style of conveying the message. For example, Kanha, chherna (Kanha, tease me) and Kanha cher na,(Kanha, don’t tease me) have entirely different meanings. The first means that Radha likes getting disturbed by Kanha and she is asking Kanha to disturb her. But the second sentence means that Radha doesn’t likes being disturbed by Kanha and she is asking him to desist from it. So this example makes it very clear that saying the same sentence in two different styles can change the meaning entirely.