India is part of my DNA: Choreographer Jonathan Hollander

It's been 22 years since internationally acclaimed choreographer and founder of Battery Dance Company (BDC) of New York, Jonathan Hollander came face to face with Bharatanatyam doyenne Sucheta Bhide-Chapekar at a Pune's dance school on Saturday. It was overwhelming for both. Hollander whose troupe is touring India with his Shakti: A Return To The Source, had choreographed her in 'Songs of Tagore' - his dance ensemble with which he toured 17 cities in India, including Kolkata ("That was really brave," he laughs) to rave reviews in 1995.

The title of the current BDC piece could well allude to Hollander's own journey. "India is a part of my DNA," says the legend, who has been to the country in 1968, 1992, 1994, 1995, 1997, 2001, 2006 and now in 2018. "Something really clicked within when I first came to India at 16 and has stayed within. The three strands of music, India and dance have beautifully braided themselves inside me and run through."

Born and raised in suburban Washington DC with three siblings by a concert-pianist mother Hollander still remembers the two grand pianos in the living room she played. "There was music around me all the time. By five, I was playing the piano (his siblings played the flute, clarinet and cello)," he recounts, "My mother often played a song I liked and I'd inevitably dance. This involved running up and down the stairs and up and down the furniture into the other room." And though his mother went to a modern dance class with his sister to learn from a German Jew, he never joined. "There were no boys. I'd accompany them and watch." While training in dance would come later he kept at piano till he was 18. He makes a face when asked why he didn't pursue it. "I couldn't be a concert pianist. I hated the idea of sitting in a place for hours, training."

Before getting ahead in the story, mention has to be made of destiny's hand in getting him to India. At high school, under the American Field Service (AFS), students were selected to be sent on exchange programmes for three months to other countries. It was felt knowing other cultures would give peace a better chance. Accordingly, Hollander wrote an autobiographical essay and his parents wrote a note each about him.

"My essay and my parents' notes for AFS were matched by someone sitting in the New York office with what Mehtas of Bombay wrote," he remembers in wonder, "Out of thousands of sketches from Brazil, Cuba and Sweden imagine finding a match like this! I wouldn't be where I am in if it weren't for that."

That's how he came to Bombay and lived with Nirupama and Siddharth Mehta and their children Anand and Nandita (incidentally their granddaughter Radhika is helping on his current tour). He says the way the Hollander and Mehta clan became one was extraordinary. The transition from suburban Washington DC to downtown Bombay was really smooth especially because of his rapport with his Indian father Siddharth Mehta. "It took a while for me to relate to my Indian mother Nirupama." But the mango season helped. "I loved and overate mango cubes and puree till I got very sick. Nirupama then nursed me through my sickness and we bonded really well."

Since it was a summer programme Hollander could chart his own course without academics. "Anand and Nandita were attending the Gujarati medium New Era school, in Bombay and I would tag along.

While academics were based on British style rote learning, they had a fabulous art teacher Dinesh Shah. He taught me Indian classical painting by helping me paint a large copy of the Boddhisatva from Ajanta. He also trained me on the sitar which he played as a hobby." This immersion in Indian music, art, painting and architecture was also a direct result of his Indian parents being founders of the of the Indian National Theatre which worked to revive Indian culture. "Siddharth Mehta was the MD of ICICI. He had gone to the University of Michigan. They had a connect with the US but lived a simple, spartan life without extravagance."

A chance introduction to Bharatanatyam guru Parvati Kumar led him to meet Chaphekar. "She was stunningly beautiful. I sat there entranced almost without breathing for an hour and a half while she did these advanced routines," he remembers. He was similarly introduced to Manipuri by the Jhaveri sisters as the Mehtas were friends with their parents.

He remembers being so sad about leaving, he stayed up all night in the Mehta home opposite Mumbai's Mahalaxmi temple. "Just touching all the objects and gathering as much memory of them as I could. All I wondered was how and when to come back."

The exchange 60 students from all over India first went to Delhi and Agra where they were shown the Taj and Fatehpur Sikri. "On the last day, we were taken to meet then PM Indira Gandhi at her residence. We sat in a semicircle on the ground and had a dialogue with her. We also met the President Zakir Hussain at the Rashtrapati Bhavan and Deputy PM Morarji Desai," he remembers.

Two months later, when Desai came to Washington Hollander sought an appointment with him to convince him not to abort the AFS programme like he was planning. "I went through my doctor who was also doctor to the Indian ambassador and his family. Morarji believed 'American students are polluting young Indian minds,' and I wanted to convince him otherwise," he says and adds, "So I sat across him in maroon khadi kurta and white pyjamas and chappals and told him what I was doing after coming back from India. I took a break from school for 60 days to travel to schools, play the sitar, sing Raghupati Raghav Raja Ram and talk about my India experience at assemblies." An unmoved Desai nixed AFS.

Hollander then moved to the University of California, Irvine where he pursued ballet, jazz and modern dance. "Everyone else was trained and I had no formal training. It took a lot of effort to beat my body into shape." His ease and grace impressed late dance and choreography legend Merce Cunningham who was at Irvine for a week-long residency. "When he invited me to be a scholarship student in New York, I dropped out of university and moved."

After his stint with the Cunningham and the New York Dance Collective, he went on to form BDC in 1976 when only 24. His art education residencies at primary, middle and high school levels in New York Public schools and 'Dancing to Connect', an intensive 20-hour programme, which brought together diverse students to creatively engage through dance. "Since 2006, we have implemented this in 50 countries. While in Thailand, this included rescued victims of trafficking, in Erbil, Iraq, we found a street dancer, Hussein Smko, who became the first recipient of the Adel Euro Campaign for Dancers Seeking Refuge."

Earlier he remembers how a culture editor at The New York Times was dismissive of Indian dance. "This year three Indian dance performances were cited among the top 10 dance performances of the year by the top dance critic of The New York Times," he beams and adds, "I like to think I have been part of that journey in my own small way."

He has annually featured renowned Indian dancers such as Mallika Sarabhai, Shashidharan Nair, Swapna Sundari, Rama Vaidyanathan, Arjun Misra and CV Chandrasekhar among others at the Battery Dance Festival in New York. His extensive work with Indian dancers, musicians and costume designers give each of his productions a uniquely Indian flavour.

For the current tour, his ensemble includes the young Bharatanatyam exponent Unnath Hassan Rathnaraju who joins the BDC troupe in a piece set to Pt Rajan-Sajan Mishra's 'Raga Durga' and Darren Sangita's music. All praise for the talented dancer from Karnataka Hollander says: "Despite coming from a grammar so different he was very open to the idea of suggestions and willing to work with a different style and grammar."

But we wouldn't expect otherwise....

p_yogesh@dnaindia.net; @powerofyogesh