Ileana Citaristi doesn’t get bogged down by difficulties in dance. She believes in innovating. Citaristi has given choreography a new dimension by using Mallakhamb, a martial art form of Odisha.
Citaristi recently introduced Mallakhamb along with Odissi for Siddhartha, a choreography based on the life of prince Siddhartha. She also brought together Paika and Thang-ta, the Manipuri martial art, for two other choreographies. Mallakhamb portrayed Siddhartha’s restlessness and his inner conflict in the Odissi dance drama based on Herman Hesse’s famous work by the same name. It explored the difficult questions of meaning, purpose, truth and enlightenment.
This inner conflict of the protagonist got a new lease of life with Mallakhamb artists, twisting and turning atop a pole with different postures in sync with Odissi dancers. “I thought the characteristics of Mallakhamb as a martial art could best portray the state of mind of Siddhartha. It was only through contortion on the pole in Mallakhamb that the strong feelings of the protagonist can be best reflected. I feel the abstractness of the contortion can signify something very strong, which is why I experimented with it,’’ explains Citaristi on her new composition.
A Chhau exponent, Citaristi was always fond of martial arts and has been working on both Odissi and Chhau for over decades. She has been experimenting with various forms of martial arts and combining them with Odissi. In 2003, she had first experimented with Chhau and Thang-ta, at the Kalinga Mahotsav, presenting the dance drama Jarjara. The theme for the piece based on acrobatic movements was ‘samudra manthan’. “But since the artistes have no idea of the taala (beat) pattern which is normally the coordinating factor in a dance form, they had to be trained to understand the rhythm. I had to mould their movements into a dance through proper rhythming,” she says. Martial movements need polish, sharpened edges, and symmetry. The use of space has to be looked into. “Choreography, I believe, is all about symmetry and designing space.’’
Citaristi had experimented with Paika dance and Chhau in 2012. She had presented Samarataranga and had faced a problem in putting the dancers in a particular rhythmic pattern. In Sidhartha, she combined Odissi and Mallakhamb.
Citaristi was inspired by a theatre production in her home town 45 years ago and wanted to come up with a fusion in Siddhartha. “I wanted to try out Mallakhamb with Odissi because of the martial art’s spectacular nature. I also wanted a theme that would be in absolute tandem with the story. I had to ensure that Mallakhamb does not take away the meaning of the story. I faced the same problem I encountered while working with Paika and Chhau—that of taala,’’ In Siddhartha, the protagonist is rescued by a boatman and it is then that the story unfolds in flashback mode. The production had the Mallakhamb artistes fill up even the vertical space on the stage which is not possible in the classical dances. “I had to look into three aspects while choreographing—the meaning and purpose of the story need to be achieved, it was an unusual combination. The criticism has to be taken seriously. The martial art movements need to be disciplined. After all this was agreed upon, I took the choreography to the Uday Shankar Festival in December,’’ adds Citaristi. Two things certainly worked for the production. It was a theatrical performance with props and the story was based on a world famous literature. The effect was dramatic. There were 14 dancers—10 Odissi and four Mallakhamb artistes. “It was important to alternate the movement of fullness and emptiness so that the stage doesn’t get crowded,” Citaristi adds.
The choreographer has also conceptualised and executed a piece on environment, Gaia (in Greek), means mother earth, a combination of Chhau and Odissi. Based on human interventions in nature, Chhau presents the five elements of nature and Odissi portrays harmony. “I had to look for movements that compliment the other. Odissi dancers were at the centre and Chhau dancers in the outer circle,” explains Citaristi. She has been conceptualising a few choreographies by combining classical and martial dance forms.