It was a delight to meet with the calm, almost beatific Leela Samson, world-renowned for her interpretation of Indian classical dance form bharatanatyam. Gracious and grounded, Samson welcomed me at the hotel’s reception area and took me to a quiet corner so we could chat in peace. Over flutes of chilled water, she gave me the lowdown on her artistic practice and the many hats she has worn in her life as dancer, administrator, Indian film censor board chief and film actor.

I found my curiosity piqued with regard to her younger years of wonder as a student of the seminal Indian dance academy and repertory Kalakshetra, her debut as a soloist, and subsequent directorship of institutes and institutions alike, sometimes generating controversy but blazing her own path wherever she went.

Samson seeks to impart a fresh flavour to the traditional vocabulary of bharatanatyam, and recounted for me some of her favourite choreographies. She is the founder of Spanda Dance Company, which performs at Esplanade in November 2018. The production in question is NADI—The River, based on a selection of poems that deal with the concept of the river and are written in Tamil, Sanskrit, Kannada, Urdu, Hindi and Bengali. These are intertwined, by Rajkumar Bharathi, into live music compositions that blend traditional tunes in a dialogue on time and across the Indian musical genres of Hindustani and Carnatic music.

Complexities of ‘technique’

Founded in 1995, Spanda is composed of dancers in their 20s, who bring a youthful energy to Samson’s choreography. Samson trained dancers to become soloists but gave serious consideration to group work when she realised that several of her students were not choosing to go solo or to pursue bharatanatyam as their only career.

During my interview with her, we discussed Samson’s broad philosophy of work and general artistic practice.

She feels that the word ‘technique’ in the context of bharatanatyam is a complex one, and that Indian classical dance forms focus too much on adhering to a bani (tradition) or a gharana (specialist school or method of classical music or dance).

The practitioners of the dance forms are so loyal to their own teachers’ methodology that they frequently forget that technique is paramount, and that it can always be honed. To achieve balance, the flavour of a bani may be used with improvement on the form.

Technique is an intelligent use of the body and the mind, and it is important for dancers to mature into an understanding that, irrespective of style and form, they should attempt to do that within their bani and gharana, while perhaps adhering to the same philosophy about life as their gurus.

Technique is about how much expanse, tightness and breath a movement is imbued with and how that is related with practice and ease to the dancer’s breath.

Foundational years at Kalakshetra

Born in 1951, Samson’s early days as a student were spent at the Kalakshetra Foundation, founded by famed bharatanatyam dancer and teacher Rukmini Devi Arundale in 1936. The rigorous schedule of this institute impacted her life and career in significant ways.

Coming from an army family—her father was a vice-admiral in the Indian navy—she had a fairly western upbringing, growing up in a military family with its British- or colonial-style parties and overall way of life.

Consequently, she was intrigued by the humility and simplicity of life at the institute as well as the theosophical principles held by her teacher, and impacted by the sahitya (body of literature) and the Tamil language.

The lack of formality and absence of punishment and fear that were otherwise common in schools that were fairly disciplinarian, was transformative for Samson, and changed her perspective on dance.

In Kalakshetra, she was trained in philosophy, mythology, and Vedic Studies¹, which would give her the tools—from sculpture, mythology, theory and the gurus—to seek these perspectives from her troupe.

Herself director of Kalakshetra from 2005 to 2012, Samson was caught in the crosscurrents of the contemporary generation and the veterans who were steeped in tradition. Attempting to make the Kalakshetra diploma a degree course so that students could go on to pursue doctoral studies, she encouraged the students to carry on their degree courses along with their dance training. However, she was unable to effect this change during her tenure.

Flowing like a river

“Choreographies are so lush in India, we are so blessed with sahitya. I love doing Jayadeva (a 12th century Sanskrit poet) and Kalidasa (ancient Sanskrit poet and dramatist),” states Samson.

Her favourite choreography experiments include those that came about organically. “The day it came out it’s almost like it (came about) unconsciously.” Kumarasangam, an offbeat piece based on Kalidasa’s narrative about a moment in the Hindu deity Shiva’s life, and the frenzied yet calm Spanda Matrika—“it’s a long 35-minute piece, it’s a dancer’s dance,”—are both pieces that have been well loved by her audience. She likes getting a padam² to fruition, and is attracted to Sanskrit works that mark her as different from other dancers of her generation “because they mostly do Tamil Telugu. I also do Tamil Telugu, I’m fond of both of them, but I do Sanskrit as well”.

The high points of Samson’s career are not a spectacular show in front of ministers, nor performing for Queen Elizabeth II in London or in grand theatres like Esplanade’s, thrilling and satisfying as these events are.

What stands out for her are perfect moments in any show, wherein the dancer feels on fire or immersed in the movement. In preparing for this latest iteration of NADI – The River, for instance, the dancers are not performing the river but are the river itself. In this way, she encourages the entire team to take ownership of the dance.

‘No half stops, no full stops’

Absorbed as she is by turn in each of her roles of dancer, instructor and administrator, she asserts, "When I’m dancing I feel there’s nothing like this. And when I’m teaching, I also feel sometimes that this is the best thing you can do because I know how important it is to have a good teacher, and I’d like to be that really good teacher… If you can change someone so quietly that they don’t even know they have changed, and they don’t even attribute it to you, they say oh, I just got better, it’s fine. … It’s an immersion … it’s the creation of new minds. I love that role. I must say I didn’t like the role of administrator too much. I find when people become difficult and negative I get hurt and blame myself. I don’t enjoy working for government.”

She views her stint at Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s national academy for the performing arts, as a great privilege—as its chairperson from 2010 to 2014, she had the responsibility of forming a committee to make choices. Travelling across the country to speak with artists about their problems in dance, music and theatre, she grasped that the committee did not have as much autonomy as she had supposed.

Yet this experience was part of her making and unmaking as an individual through the course of her career, inasmuch as other public roles as well as personal circumstances.

Outsider and mentor

Brought up in a Jewish household, Samson was, nevertheless, drawn philosophically towards Hinduism as well as her guru Rukmini Devi’s theosophical background that accepted all religions. Yet she still felt like an outsider, as she had not grown up with Hindu traditions.

As director of Kalakshetra, Samson worked as much with the students as she did with the staff at the theatre, succeeding in lifting it from the doldrums; she was caught between her understanding of what digitally-savvy young people like and her respect for the veterans of Kalakshetra.

Inspired by Rukmini Devi, Samson wrote a biography of her teacher and mentor, attempting to cover her 25 dance dramas and numerous solo items. In her own daily life, Samson seeks to move and impact young people and their understanding and self-expression through the arts. She loves training her five to 10 students, and spending time with her dogs and a few close friends. Greenpeace, education and partnership between countries are causes that she chooses to invest her time in. Over and above, however, this makes her happy, just being herself. I reckon this is the secret behind the maestro and her myriad accomplishments.