Lakshmi Knight, Bharatanatyam Pt. 2

Pretext: I write this essay with such profound emotions that cannot be described in words. Forgive me if I have not adhered to my usual standards of writing. 

Fundamentally, art is beautiful. Everything that is curated with such beauty, is art. Now, interestingly, somehow this curation of such art isn’t always done similarly. Sometimes there is thought, and sometimes there isn’t. Sometimes art happens in a fleeting instant during someone’s strenuous search for beauty. Sometimes art appears to a groggy someone who sings, out of nowhere, such an extraordinary phrase that it baffles even him. Sometimes it occurs when someone painfully sits looking through the thesaurus for hours to find a synonym for a word, for it to fit better with the metre in poetry. Sometimes it just organically starts flowing like a stream, unstoppably, with tears flowing down your cheeks and your fingers shaking. And sometimes, art engulfs you, making you lose all sense of reality, making you forget who you are, what you are doing, etc.. In that moment, there is just art. There is nothing beyond. I write today about the time when i witnessed a piece of art that did that to the artiste, and to me. But isn’t that what I wrote about the last time, too? No. It isn’t.

Lakshmi Knight was possibly one of the greatest south-indian classical dancers that the world has ever seen. She was the daughter of the legendary danseuse and maestra Balasaraswati, from whom she learnt the profound art. As the daughter of Bala, Lakshmi was one of the most illustrious, fine, and pure expressions of the Devadāsi style, and the sole beacon of her mother’s school. She spent more than half of her life in America, and married Douglas M Knight, an American master-mridangist and scholar who learnt from T Ranganathan, known today for his musical brilliance and his book on Bala. There aren’t many recitals of Lakshmi available to view, with barely two comprehensible sequences of her performances existing. Lakshmi quite unfortunately, passed away at the early age of 53 in 2001, depriving this world of a true devadasi style, and of magnificent art. The loss of her is a major hit to the dance compendium. Who will we find again who could perform this art, with such abstract beauty?

Whilst randomly scrolling through the search results of “Balasaraswati” on my laptop, I fell upon a video posted by the Vaak foundation that contained a private recital of a Lakshmi Knight, with a grainy thumbnail that drew me immediately. It had a lady pinching at her shimmering sari above her head, completely immersed in her performance, with every muscle of her body in a sacred connection with art. If this was impressive, I was truly in for a shock for whatever was to come. It was dark, and I had just finished practising with my tambura with no lights on. I put on my headphones and began watching. First, there was a beautiful narration about what the first piece was. It is important that we know this for us to comprehend the recital better. Niddhirayil Soppanathil is a Padam in Kāmavardini composed in classical Tamil that describes the lament of the heroine who has dreamt of her hero’s dallying with a young maiden. It exquisitely pens the pain that she goes through even while merely thinking of this unbearable sight. The Pallavi, Anupallavi, and Charanam of the Padam have beautifully different themes. The Pallavi establishes the basic idea of her pain due to the dream, with intense restlessness and yearning. The Anupallavi, meanwhile, delves into why the heroine is so in love with the hero, with her proudly boasting the greatness of the man. Veera and pride are significant in the section. The Charanam starkly contrasts this, with the heroine becoming exceedingly frustrated with life, loathing herself, with her feeling that each minute has now become seemingly dragging like aeons. She loses all interest in herself, she sarcastically remarks with frustration: “What is this walk? What is this waist? What is this silk?” in poetic Tamil.

Following this, Lakshmi Knight simply walks in from the audience, dressed in no ostentatious ornaments or garments, but in a simple and elegant sari. She reaches the centre-stage while the musicians prepare; Uma Shivakumar to sing, with T Vishwa on the flute and Douglas Knight on the Mridangam. Niddhirayil Soppanathil starts playing. Lakshmi begins by tapping her foot to the Tālā, her anklets wondrously clinking. While this happened, I observed her entire body instead of just her feet. I saw the yearning. How does one even portray yearning by just tapping their feet! And then, it started. She began dancing, with such exemplary facial expressions, and such organic, human, hand movements portraying the pain of the heroine. Mr Knight’s mridangam was a very important element to this recital of Lakshmi. He plays extremely tastefully and receptively, understanding the context. He plays triple beats, creating an intense atmosphere musically to add to the pitiable plight of the heroine. I could see the desperate desire in the heroine’s eyes that fuelled this yearning for her hero. Lakshmi sang along, with such expressive beauty, biting her lips in frustration and yearning, portraying the helpless, uncontrollable want of the heroine, and taking a literal masterclass in Abhinaya. In the Anupallavi, she immediately transitions into a happier state, proudly and innocently portraying the magnificence of her hero, with true admiration shining in her eyes. In a perplexing, dramatic, and extraordinary crescendo, intensity reaches fever pitch with Knight shifting the gait and playing Sarvalaghu as soon as the Charanam began. Lakshmi’s expressions change again. This time, she truly is narrating to us what she went through, with unexplainable frustration that was so deep that it numbed her. We see a detached heroine telling us her story. Her eyes show her anger towards herself and life. Her gait fastens. Her eyebrows raise. She even puts on a slight smile in frustration. She now dances in painful joy because there is truly nothing left for her. If seeing this did something to me, the next piece made me cry.

The next piece presented was another Padam: Payyadā in Nādanāmakriya. In the composition, the heroine is suddenly rejected by her husband. She is in shock, and in despair. That great man who loved her so intensely, who admired her, who was so attracted to her, now has just left…in the middle of the night. The piece is colossal, with its musicality and nuances reaching peaks unseen in other compositions. It is deeply emotional and incredibly immersive. Now, this padam was known to me before watching this, and was already one of my favourites in music. I was excited. However, I was not prepared.

Lakshmi walks to the stage, once again, this time not even bothering to be in the centre. She looks at her husband.

The flute begins a short alapana in the raga, and on its completion, Vishwa himself begins singing the magnificent composition. Lakshmi stands there, maintaining the cyclic Tālam in her hand. The mridangam progresses constructively. With the second sangati beginning, receptively the mridangam sounds a resonant “thakita”. Lakshmi steps forward and literally falls into dancing, opening her hands wide and completely assuming form.

That shook me internally. I suddenly had tears flowing down my cheeks, and I had no idea why. Lakshmi had completely become the heroine, performing such an extremely heightened form of Abhinaya that I had never witnessed in my life ever. She danced, gently holding her sari with artistry in her hand, near her face. Now, I must apologise for my inability to describe this moment. My skills in writing have truly failed me. But, the hit that I felt in my heart, that pushed more tears out of my eyes — that was profound; that was art.

I do not wish to elaborate a lot more on this particular piece’s rendition with my crude skills, but I will point out a few things. As Lakshmi danced with such extraordinary beauty that almost made me think that this was all madness, I just sat there, breathless. She showed us the pain of rejection through her helpless expressions that screamed “Why me?! What did I do?!”, with the mridangam behaving like an emphasising background theme that made it all seem so real. Lakshmi sang with pain, “Aiyaiyo!”, using the music to express her wails and weeps. Such innocence, even in those wails, was portrayed. As the pallavi reaches its conclusion, Lakshmi begins flicking her tears in despair with the mridangam mimicking the flicking receptively. This is when something extremely interesting happens, which I consider the highest peak of art seen in Bharatanatyam. With a teermānam, the mridangist finishes his playing of the pallavi sequence and the vocalist begins the charanam. Lakshmi realises with the start of the Charanam that she is the artiste and not the heroine, and that she has to continue her portrayal and is seen sighing, out of her character. This sigh was the peak of all beauty in the recital. It is proof that Lakshmi the artiste did not exist in a performance; there existed only Lakshmi the heroine. The artist has become the art. That is art.

I remember thinking, “This was probably how Bala danced in her prime.”

— Nandaki.