MANIPURI FOLK DANCE IN CULTURAL EXCHANGE

It was a moving sight – students of the traditional dance form of Manipur, touching the feet of Birohini, their dance teacher, to get her blessings before they performed Khamba Thoibi.  This was at the valedictory function held at the end of a seven-day workshop on Manipuri folk dance form, organised by the National Folklore Support Centre (NFSC). This workshop is the first in a series of workshops to be conducted by the NFSC, as part of their Folk Dances of India series.

Conducted in collaboration with Chitra Visweshwaran’s Chidambaram Academy of Performing Arts, the workshop attracted 14 participants, most of them initiated into classical dance, some professional dancers, some folk dance artists and a few participants from an NGO.  But one thing they all had in common was their enthusiasm to learn and the respect that they had, for a dance form that was quite unlike theirs.

NFSC, which stresses on extensive fieldwork and research before organising its workshops, decided to begin its Folk Dance Series with relatively unknown dances of Northeast India to make the series unique and special.  The first in the series, the ‘Khamba Thoibi’ dance is based on a tragic epic love story between a commoner Khamba and the beautiful Princess Thoibi, and is one of the most popular dances performed in Manipur.  It involves a male and a female dancer dressed in traditional costumes and the story is narrated through a song.

Two artists, Heisnam Birohini and Bisheswar B, were invited from Manipur to conduct the workshop.  Birohini is a recognised Manipuri folk dance teacher at a school in Shillong and Bisheswar is her student and an artist himself.

Speaking at the inaugural function, Anita Ratnam, well-known classical and contemporary dance exponent, was all praise for NFSC for their efforts in bringing folk dances to Chennai, “where traditional dancers need to be more open-minded and learn from folk dance forms which are rich, vibrant and spontaneous”.  She also said, “these dance forms that celebrate the activities, seasons, festivals and the joy of living, should teach us to dance for the sake of dancing, rather than only for giving performances”.

The seven-day workshop started with the participants being taught the basic movements of Khamba Thoibi; then Birohini took them through the various sequences that make up the dance, accompanied by demonstrations and general lectures on the culture and life of the Manipuri people.  One afternoon was devoted to music, when Birohini explained the meaning and significance of the music of Khamba Thoibi, which is an integral part of the dance.  Another afternoon was spent demonstrating the make-up and costumes for both males and females.  Every day ended with an interactive session, where the participants exchanged views and discussed dance movements and cultural differences.

At the end of seven days, it seemed they accomplished much more than learning the basics of the dance form, as Bharathi John, one the participants pointed out, “Apart from the dance, we learnt a lot from the interactions we had with our teacher, about diversities and some surprising similarities between the Northeastern and South Indian customs.”  Bharathi, Aarudra and Henry, who are from an NGO called Deenabandhu in a village of the same name near Tiruttani, which works with rural children on alternative education (among other things), will find the movements they picked up useful for their classes.  Palani and Raja Ravi Varma, who are associated with Koothu-p-pattarai, the popular folk theatre group, also echoed Bharathi’s thoughts.

Pavithra, a Bharatanatyam dancer, felt Khamba Thoibi needed a high level of concentration and said, “It was a test of balance, concentration and grace for us, and a new experience in terms of movement.  The steps looked simple enough but dancing with the same elegance and fluidity took up a lot of energy.”

Kavitha Ramu, another professional Bharatanatyam dancer, who called the experience “refreshing” and “inspiring,” said the workshop would be very helpful when she choreographed her contemporary compositions.

At the valedictory, Chitra Visweshwaran said, she was happy that her academy was associated with the workshop, and added that all classical dance forms sprung from folk and congratulated NFSC for their endeavour towards “discovering other movement philosophies, exchanging knowledge and widening horizons.”

Those who missed the workshop can look forward to NFSC’s next public programme, where it will be bringing a folk dance form from Meghalaya, in the coming months.

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