Rajib Roy caught up with Ukrainian Bharatnatyam dancer Ganna Smirnova during her visit to Shillong
GANNA, PRONOUNCED Anna or Hanna means ‘kripa’ or blessing. Aptly, Ukrainian Ganna Smirnova earned the blessing of Bharatnatyam dance guru Jayalakshmi Eshwar to become one of the top performers of the classical dance form from Tamil Nadu. And dancing brought her to Shillong a few days ago.
Ganna’s dance recital for a ‘baithak’ – a performance where the audience sit on the floor in a homely atmosphere – was organized by the city-based Asian Confluence in collaboration with Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR). Asian Confluence is an initiative of Divya Jeevan Foundation, a non-profit cultural organisation.
Before the start of her recital, Ganna described Bharat (India) as a word with three syllables – bha, ra and ta meaning ‘the land of sages’. She opened her recital with ‘prayer to the nine directions’ explaining the significance of this Indian temple dance. She then presented a temple dance on goddesses Lakshmi, Saraswati and Durga.
In her interaction with the audience, Ganna touched upon her life and her association with Indian tradition, culture and spirituality. “I have performed ballet dance since the age of five under Virsky’s and other professional groups back home in Ukraine. But in such dance forms you tend to get bored since there is not much of improvisation,” she said. She was given an ICCR grant in 1998 to study Bharatnatyam in New Delhi.
She had earlier developing a love for Indian traditional dances, particular the temple dances. “I came to India thinking of performing one day like all those famous Indian dancers performing worldwide. I watched different artistes and dance forms like Kuchipudi, Odissi and Bharatnatyam at various stages portraying different emotions. Eventually, I met my guru and went to meet her at her institute the very next day,” she said.
Guru Eshwar noticed the talent within Ganna and took her in as a disciple following a demonstration. Ganna learnt Bharatnatyam intensively for more than six years under the ICCR scholarship and since her Arangetram in 2000 has been presenting solo dance recitals in India and Ukraine. Arangetram is the post-training debut stage performance of a Bharatanatyam student. It is a graduation dance for Bharatnatyam. While doing her post graduation in India she received rave reviews from leading critics.
Ganna has visited many Indian pilgrimages. Being an avid follower of Indian spiritual way of life she has also read extensively the works on yoga by Sri Aurobindo, Yogananda and others. “I took to Bharatnatyam over Kuchipudi and others because it is very improved. Indian classical dances are good for health, are philosophical, aesthetically beautiful and raises the satisfaction level,” she said.
She added: “I have performed in the temple of Nataraja during the Natyanjali Festival in Chidambaram and Thanjavur. I love Chidambaram because that is the birth place of Indian culture, dance forms and tradition as I pray a lot to Sri Durga. I love the temple dance initiative, and have fond memories of dancing on white marbles on a moonlight night in a southern temple.”
Ganna, from Ukraine capital Kiev, said her home city was named after one of three friends who founded her country. She said that people in Ukraine love Bollywood and Indian classical recitals but there is no promotion and so has not made it to the mainstream. But she – a mother of two and wife of a teacher of international relations – is doing her bit to bridge this gap. After returning to Ukraine in 2003, she established Nakshatra, a theatre of Indian dance at Taras Shevchenko National University, Kiev. She teaches Indian dance there.
Ganna’s theatre has been ceaselessly working for the promotion of Indian art and culture in Ukraine besides fostering a very high level of understanding between the two countries. She has a keen desire to educate fellow Ukrainians on India’s cultural ethos. The theatre conducts lessons of Indian classical dances and yoga, organizes festivals of dance and music, an exhibition of painting of the Indian and Ukrainian artists, lecture-demonstrations and master classes of famous gurus, performance of students, directs students for studying Indian arts in India, carries out lectures and trainings in other cities of Ukraine. At Nakshatra, she also teaches her students the basics of Sanskrit, integral to Indian classical dance forms.
Ukraine and India share strong economic ties that can be traced to the Pagan religion Ukrainians followed in the past. “The Ukrainian brand of paganism was similar to Hinduism. The language that we speak in Ukraine has words similar to Sanskrit,” she said.
Ukraine’s orthodoxy and conservativeness is another factor that prevents the growth of foreign culture and traditions. Ganna, who authored “Indian Temple Dances: Tradition, Philosophy and Legends” to answers questions about Indian temple dances, got the book published on the 175th anniversary of the university where she works. The book, first of its kind in the CIS region, was appreciated by academicians for its depth and quality.
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