Growing up in the US and constantly in touch with their musical roots in Chennai, siblings Bharatanatyam dancer Pallavi Sriram and Carnatic singer Sid Sriram have managed to create a distinct space for themselves in the field of music and dance. But it is in their collaborations that the duo is being keenly watched. Pallavi helming the dance and Sid the music, their concerts are a confluence of multiple influences. The two recently staged their latest production, ‘Indru poi naalai vaarai’ in Chennai.

Pallavi Sriram, a dancer and critical cultural scholar, is Assistant Professor of Dance Studies at Colorado College. She teaches about dance, politics, culture, theories about the body, and history as well as creative process extending from South Asian traditions of dance, poetry and thought. She did her Masters and PhD at UCLA in Critical Culture and Performance. Dance Studies stems from the idea that dance is not an isolated object but a field of knowledge that is always in conversation with the social, political and economic. Her current research focuses on dance in relation to political-economic movement. She got her Bachelors double-majoring in Chemical Engineering and Dance before diving whole-heartedly into the humanities.

Pallavi was in the city to visit the art expo, Kochi-Muziris Biennale.

Excerpts from an interview

Your dance research is also about geography. Can you explain that?

My broad interest is how dance and music are bodily forms of cultural production which are always in conversation with social and political change, particularly in periods of significant flux. My research on South India and Indian Ocean circulations developed out of my interest in these relationships. In precolonial South Asia, for example, there was considerable movement across places, because of various shifts in trade and political influence. Dance, music and theatre in South India developed in significant ways due to this movement.

Tell us a little about the beginnings of your interest in dance

My mother, Latha Sriram, is a musician. Music has been a part of my growing up, a part of my approach to almost everything I encounter. I began with it as a 4- year- old but somewhere down the way I had to make a commitment and I chose dance. The way I approach dance is very much from a sensibility of instinctively responding to music. After studying with Padmasri Chitra Visweswaran as a senior disciple for nearly a decade, I have been creating my own work independently for the last four or five years.

You are a Bharatanatyam dancer but your dance has many new elements. Why and what are these.

I am not working in a different genre but Bharatanatyam. There is the idea that Bharatanatyam is classical and then there is the experimental. I think innovation is from our approach. Our classical forms are incredibly rich in that they provide a deep framework and within a song, I identify the moments that can grow. These are like seeds. I let the moment unfold, via my dance. Every time I do some piece like that you do it anew, every time it changes quite considerably. Sometimes the impetus, or seed, can come from me, the dancer, sometimes from the music. It takes a lot of work on your craft, so when the moment comes you unfold. This is very exciting for me.

Your interest in Kerala theatre

I am increasingly interested in traditional Kerala theatre like koodiyattam, nangiarkoothu and theyyam. Not only in traditional theatre per se, there is so much happening here with more experimental theatre. I just visited Lokadharmi Theatre company and their work is exciting. The attitude towards the arts, experimentation and its social relevance here is invigorating. That is what is interesting to me about the Biennale as well, how many people here come and engage with these artists and their work.

Kochi is situated within a history of movement across the Indian Ocean – East Africa, the Gulf, and beyond. One finds new approaches to music and dance have come out of these, of course some of it has a much older history.

You are into musical collaborations?

I have been doing so for the past four years. I collaborate primarily with my brother Sid Sriram. Over the years we share a deep understanding and sense of our music. We both have a deep respect for each other’s arts, so unfolding in a collaboration comes naturally. He responds to my dance, while I respond to his music. It can go in any direction once we start, it is continually energizing to us both.

These collaborations exist as concert dance on traditional stages but just as easily exist in different contexts and spaces. I see it in informal and experimental settings. At the end of the day, it is about storytelling, and what interests me is the possibilities of storytelling which go beyond assumptions of cultural literacy or form.

So your dance is innovative and the costumes?

The saris for my costumes are designed by my mother. I dance in unconventional spaces such as museum spaces, courtyards, small experimental black box studios. In such spaces I don’t wear what has come to be seen as traditional Bharatanatyam costume but I prefer a simple sari, usually cotton. I find the sari one of the most comfortable things to wear to dance.

Tell us about your latest production in December 2018

The name of the show is an iconic line from the film Sampoorna Ramayana, sung by CS Jayaraman. For me the crux was a moment when Ravana is sitting, playing the veena, in front of his idol Shiva with disbelief at the magnitude of the events that had happened. I took the interpretation from that point, taking the events of the Ramayana ultimately as Ravana’s story – he is the one I find most compelling and unexplored in this epic. My brother conceived of the musical movement of the show and together we took an expanded approach to what classical dance and music could do together – focused on improvisational possibilities. It was an incredible pleasure playing with Vidwans HN Bhaskar on violin, Praveen Sparsh on the mridangam, Dr S. Karthik on ghatam, and Mylai Karthikeyan on nadaswaram. We wove together classical Carnatic compositions, vintage Tamil film songs and traditional dance compositions to form the arc we built on.

Tell us about your mix of pop culture, classical dance and music in your productions?

It is a many layered relationship. Today we talk of classical and popular field as separate but earlier, the two were deeply intertwined. MS Subbulakshmi and GNB sang for films, not to mention iconic singers like Sirkazhi Govindarajan, KB Sundarambal, many more. Dancers Padmini and Vyjantimala were classical dancers. At that time classical dance reached out to a large number of people through film or popular culture. I find a richness and beauty to music and dance from that era of film and I am bringing that into the universe of what I do. There’s an expansiveness and honesty to the music which I find so compelling, so it’s a treasured place for me to turn. When I incorporate it, what I create is my response to that honesty and energy.