Bijayini Satpathy, for one of the world’s greatest living dancers, is disarmingly mischievous in person. And, as I have experienced with a few others closest to perfection in their chosen art, humble and approachable. She will readily admit to being quite mad and with a casual nonchalance say that she trains from dawn to dusk at Nrityagram. It is then you realise that this is no ordinary dancer, and Nrityagram no ordinary dance school.
This interview was conducted at the Chitrasena Kalayathanaya. The ambient noise in the video reflects the noise levels in which students rehearse and learn dance at the Kalayathanaya, given the location adjacent to one of Colombo’s busiest roads and intersections. Although distracting for a viewer of this video, a live performance at the Kalayathanaya is so captivating that it very quickly transports the audience into a parallel world, where the only sound is the music that simultaneously frames the dancer and allows her, and us, to break free from such mundane distractions as traffic and set construction.
What Orhan Pamuk is to literature, Bijayini is to dance. She is effortlessly captivating. Having seen her dance on a couple of occasions, I was delighted when I got the opportunity to speak with her at length on the art of dance, her sojourn in Sri Lanka, her take on our own dance traditions, her bond to the Chitrasena Kalayathanaya and, in general, her experiences as a dancer, life in Nrityagram and the nature of a relationship between the guru and the student.
UN Under-Secretary-General and Special Representative for Children and Armed Conflict, Dr. Radhika Coomaraswamy, said this of our own renowned Upekha,
“These were not dancers going through a routine and doing their steps. These were inspired artists. When I see Upekha dance even today, I see that genius:-. the love of music, bodies immersed in the rhythm, the confidant mastery of body movements, the commitment to excellence and a passion for their art form. When they danced everyone reveled in that moment of artistic perfection.”
I remembered Radhika’s words when I was talking with Bijayini and my mind flashed back to the first time I saw her dance with Surupa Sen, another virtuoso from Nrityagram, in a closed door performance for friends and family of the Chitrasena Kalayathanaya. It was rich fare, sublime and magical. In the tradition of our own Chitrasena, Vajira and Upekha, seeing Bijayini dance is to give pause to violence and hopelessness and see the best of us come alive.