Bharata and Bach: Two Forms of the “Sacred”
From Bharata Natyam to Bach via the claviorgan: from the sacred to the sacred, whether Indian or Christian, it hardly matters, accompanied by a musical "hippogriff" that combines an organ with a harpsichord. These are the surprises of the liturgical choreography recital Bharata Bach, conceived by the Italian Milena Salvini, head of the Centre Mandapa in Paris (a place of worship for Indian dance), danced by the twenty-five-year-old Maria-Kiran, played by Claudio Brizi, who is also the designer of the original instrument, and by violinist/violist Giovanni Borrelli. Another encounter between distant cultures, more resonant than ever with the theme of the 2006 edition of Oriente Occidente, with India, Italy, and France united in the adventure of marrying the most noble of the six classical Indian dances (in addition to Bharata Natyam: Kathakali, Kathak, Manipuri, Mohini Attam, and Orissi) to the sublime music of Bach through the common tension towards the spirit and the love of God, which theoretically unites Bharata Natyam – created by divine inspiration from the legendary Bharatamuni – to the sacred music of the great musician from Eisenach. In practice, the questions about this unprecedented liturgical union will be resolved as soon as we have completed its viewing. But the premises are more than promising.
As is well known, Bharata Natyam illustrates the various stages of Hindu worship, particularly the individual soul's journey predisposed to encounter the divine, referring to poetic-religious texts that date back more than two thousand years and attest to the devotional and cultural origin of this dance (originating in South India) and practiced in temples by the so-called devadasis or "servants of God." Through precise formal modules – the embroidery of hands (Mudra), the mobility of eyes, neck, and shoulders, the rhythmic dynamism of feet – the performer can both design pure forms (nrtta) and convey lyrical-dramatic expressions (nrtya: mimetic-pantomimic dance). Bharata Natyam is thus a complex and versatile dance, but with an inherent liturgical and religious background, and it is precisely because of this characteristic that its typically Hindu aesthetics can meet the Lutheran aesthetics of Bach's liturgical music, never confined to mere abstraction but capable of reaching the heights of the highest religious expressiveness.
Selected by Milena Salvini and reworked by Claudio Brizi, the Bachian music accompanying Maria-Kiran's recital – a young virtuoso who has studied with the greatest masters in her country of origin, particularly with Vidya, the choreographer of this spectacular liturgy – finds ideal support in the sound alchemy of the claviorgan. It continuously transitions from the delicate plucking of strings to the changing breath of organ registers, with effects that sometimes evoke the human voice. According to the creator Milena Salvini, Bharata Bach is a declaration of love from man to the divine and radiates mystical eroticism. Thus, it is not just a sacred ritual: dance and music offer the aesthetic and profane pleasure of all performances where movement and sound meet through the beauty that distinguishes them separately and that can explode... squared.
