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May 2002

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 WINDOW ON CANADA

Revealed By Fire opens with Lata Pada, “dressed in a simple creamy - coloured sari, limbering up on an open stage against a backdrop of tall, vertical red silk panels…She launches into a solo demonstrating her command of the richly gestural Bharata Natyam style,” that is how the National Post art critic Michael Crabb described the opening scene when he watched this in March 2001. He has called it the  "Most Important Production of 2001" in the Ballet Tanz International Yearbook issue.

There’s the sound of distant traffic, then the roar of a jet passing overhead. "It was an ordinary day. I was rehearsing. The phone rang...." So go the first words of Revealed by Fire.

The “ordinary day” was on June 23, 1985 Lata Pada was rehearsing in a Bombay studio for a performance, when she received the news that her husband and two teenage children were among the 329 victims of the bombing of Air- India Flight 182 off the south coast of Ireland.

Lata Pada and photographer Cylla von Tiedemann worked on the multimedia piece for the past two years, but Lata Pada lived with it for 16 before its maiden performance last year. Images from India and Canada infuse the work.   Von Tiedemann’s projected photographs, in which fire and water are recurring images, are a powerful support for Lata Pada’s theme.

Lata Pada had commissioned music from the well-known Indian composer R.A. Ramamani, who completed a classical South Indian score evoking the same emotions she wanted to convey through dance. Back in Toronto, Sullivan opened up a whole new world of sound possibility, and the finished score weaves Ramamani's set pieces into a composition that integrates spoken narrative, bits of Ramamani's rearranged score, ambient sounds from India, elements from video documentaries, a tape of Pada's daughter's voice, and music from Pada's past. Playwright Judith Rudakoff wrote the script.

Lata Pada uses the 2000-year-old tradition of Bharata Natyam dancing to work her way through grief and sadness toward transformation. She has “committed a form of psychological sati” - the old Indian custom of sati in which an Indian widow was expected to sacrifice herself on her husband’s funeral pyre – to enter fire and accept the pain.

She has largely succeeded in turning autobiography into a broader, universal statement about the indomitable strength of the human spirit.  The overall message is conveyed with great dignity and even restraint.  This is largely due to her own ability to convey depth of feeling with an extreme economy of physical means.

"There's a certain acceptance that comes out of a true cleansing," she explains. "It happens when you've been bared completely. Something spiritual happens."

   Interview with Lata Pada*

"Revealed by Fire" is your autobiography using dance, multi - media, music, narration and theater. The response was so overwhelming, some people  had to be turned away. Is this the first time such a thing has happened to a performance of South Asian dance?

It is the first time that I have experienced such an overwhelming response to the premiere of a new production, three sold out nights with standing ovations. A new milestone for South Asian dance in Canada! In today’s competition for media coverage that all artists face, for their work to be profiled or critiqued, REVEALED BY FIRE attracted unprecedented attention from the media.  I had no less than eight articles, including previews, interviews and reviews in the major national newspapers and three radio interviews.  This was directly responsible for the incredible response we had in those wishing to attend the show. Yes, we regretted the number of people that had to be turned away; certainly we could have sold out another night.  

Was "Revealed by Fire" your very first attempt at a completely contemporary style of working including choreography and subject?

In fact, I have been creating contemporary works for several years and several of them including TIMESCAPE, COSMOS, CROSSWINDS and YATRA have been recognized for extending the boundaries of Bharatanatyam in syntax and choreographic approach.  Certainly, REVEALED BY FIRE was a new direction for me as a choreographer; the production was completely autobiographical and multi-media.  Setting a personal narrative within a dance-theatre context was an exciting extension of my choreographic vision.  

How difficult was it to translate your personal life's tragedy and loss into a piece of art?

The creation of REVEALED BY FIRE has been a long journey; it has taken me three years to arrive at a point where I had the courage to tell my personal story in the medium of dance. The transformative nature of my personal tragedy has been the subject of several documentaries (the latest one – DANCING IN THE SPIRIT, produced by Canadian Broadcasting Corporation has just been awarded the prestigious Wilbur prize for best documentary) and articles in magazines and newspapers, but it was another matter altogether to transform this work into a personal mythology with universal relevance. On a personal level, I had to agonize over whether this work could be perceived as self-indulgent; on an artistic level, I was challenged on how to create a sensitive, aesthetic work and how to integrate the visuals into the production.

What were some of the problems / discoveries you made during your collaboration with Cylla von Tiedemann in "Revealed by Fire"?

The rewards of collaborating with Cylla on this work have far outweighed the challenges that we faced in the creation of this work. Partnering on a work that uses two distinct artistic disciplines requires a deeper level of understanding of one’s own craft. Photography is ‘in the moment’ whereas movement continues to evolve.  Cylla has a western approach to her work and my sensibility is Indian. But the process of challenging, confronting and provoking each other was grounded in a common quest – we were both committed to the message of the work. For us, the greatest challenge was in focusing on the ‘core or soul’ of the work, it was when I realized that the universal would emerge from the personal story, that I knew that REVEALED BY FIRE was the story of one woman and therefore of all women. 

Has the success of "Revealed by Fire" transformed you in any way as a woman and as an artiste?

The creative journey of working on REVEALED BY FIRE has in itself been another test of fire. To create a work of art out of an autobiographical narrative poses all sorts of self doubts- “will it be seen as self –indulgent?”,  “will I have the emotional strength to dance it?”, “how to set the personal story within the framework of a theatrical work”? Ultimately, I had to follow my instinct because I needed to resolve several issues of womanhood and identity. This work was not about the telling of a tragic story, it was more importantly about the transformation and the catharsis that I underwent in searching for my identity as woman.  Emerging from the artistic test has given me a new sense of self, it has also convinced me of the importance of creating works that come from a deeply personal source, it is what connects and transforms the audience with one’s work in the most intimate way.  What has become the most important outcome is the validation of REVEALED by total strangers expressing through letters, messages and emails their own personal transformation viewing the work. .

    *(Source: Info Centre: Narthaki Online interviews - As told to ARR)