Mavin Khoo on why varnam is more than just a ritual

Mavin Khoo
| Photo Credit: VEDHAN M

The varnam presents musicians and dancers with a universe of possibilities. Popular variations of the varnam format are the pada varnam, tana varnam, daru varnam and swarajathi. These have a common rule set that is based on a theoretical framework. They are defined through the particularity of sahitya (lyrical) structure between the first and second half of the composition, the possible existence of sollukattu (rhythmic vocalisation) within the composition and other theoretical or personal artistic choices. Further artistic selections that are made based on accents, kalapramanam (tempo) and the rigour of musical intention can allow for interpretive prescriptions to the aesthetic of the varnam.

Traditionally, within a Carnatic kutcheri format, the varnam is presented as an opening piece allowing the musician a clear structure to warm into the programme. There are rare musicians nowadays who use the varnam as the main work of the evening. This is usually when there is the potential for exploration of that particular varnam, its structure and the raga that underpins it.

Within the context of a Bharatanatyam margam, the description of the varnam’s role within the form has been elaborated through every programme booklet or hand-on-mic moment by dancers. Phrases such as ‘piece de resistance’ to the ‘central piece of the dance’ are commonly articulated. However, I would like to share a more personal insight into the varnam in the context of my relationship with it.

My entry point has increasingly — through age and experience — been three-fold: structure, music and bhava/shringara. These three elements are integral in facilitating a kind of ritual that is at once bound by rules that can, through the experienced artiste, become boundless in potential for play and improvisation.

I have always been fascinated by ritual. It demands a temperament that is focused on prescribing an uncompromised series of events. As a dancer, the completion of the initial trikala jathi (pattern of steps that integrate three distinct speed variations) is but a momentary sense of accomplishment before humbly facing the marathon ahead that determines another four or five jathis (or more) not including further pure dance virtuosity through swaras. Not to mention the abhinaya through the sahitya passages. It is a codified structure of frameworks — all of which create a journey where the body and mind are in collaboration to serve a series of rituals determined through the musical format.

The music itself has always been my anchor to understand where to place the sthayi bhava (the primary or constant bhava). The proposition of the majesty that lies in a Sankarabharanam, which is different to the romance of Khamas or tension and austerity of Thodi. What the raga proposes in terms of its emotional complexion has the ability to provide a strong supporting hand — an intangible yet very present invisible partner.

The third element is arguably one that is consistently open to discourse. The presence of Shringara as the driving force of intent. Through my years as a Bharatanatyam soloist, I have grown up through the sanctification of it, the gender-specified appropriation of it and even the indifference to it with attention being redirected towards impressive athleticism and less towards emotional intent. All of these have found their place in shaping the aesthetics of more contemporary composed varnams made for Bharatanatyam today.

Yet, it is the ambiguity of this very human life theme of unrequited love that fascinates me as an artiste. It proposes the multi-layered pluralism that love, desire and the body proposes, all whilst surrendering to prescriptions of rules set and academic grammar. There is an almost anarchic defiance in the interrogation of the personal and the physical embodiment of desire whilst determined to finish the 45-minute marathon through this jewel of a composition — the Varnam.

And perhaps, it’s what the demands of this three-fold entry point propose as a landing point at the end of the last swara cycle that fascinates me the most. The commitment that pushes the physical and emotional body to the limits of movement and stillness. One can never truly anticipate the level of exhaustion that presents itself as a reality. The ego ‘to show’ is broken. The body is heightened in its need to ‘hold on’ — love has unfolded to hope — bhakti lands as an experience.

Mavin Khoo is a well-known international dance artiste