Reading between the lines

Teaching dance is beyond teaching movements. A teacher is always loaded with the weight that s/he is helping someone learn new things and grow.

I am not sure how much this is true for me. But one truth has stayed permanently with me. And that is that after each class since 1972, my students have never failed to teach me or project dance to me in a newer dimension every day.

Recently I had a session with our senior beginners at Rasadhwani. During such sessions the lessons are always interactive. I was demonstrating, verbally and bodily, some of the technical aspects of dance. I tried to explain to them that sheer movement is not dance just as mere words are not poetry or mere portrait is not painting. The connoisseurs read the poetry in between the lines, search for the painting on the blank space of the canvas and watch dance more in the non moving limbs than in a furiously moving body.

The session got over and I left for home in my usual happy mood. Soon I received a message on my mobile-phone from one of the students who was present in this session. He wrote, “Teacher, today's lesson that that what does not move is Dance, that what is not portrayed is Painting, that what is not mentioned is poetry - is a profound revelation.”

I realized that that which is unspoken and that which is silent is more powerful than that which is depicted obviously, even in art.

- Dr. Uma Anantani