The First Stage Performance

The dancer slowly ascended the steps on to the stage. Her legs felt like rubber and the butterflies in her stomach seemed to have increased ten fold. It was her arangetam or her first performance to a packed audience. The first step in every dancer's career to higher glories, that stage when the dance teacher feels that his/her student has got the necessary amount of education and expose him/her to professionals in the field. The arangetam would be sealing her future in the area, the good or the bad – it all depends on fate and her nerves of course.

Her training for the Dday had been intense and rigorous for the past 3 months. Her teacher , being the apostle of perfection, had been unrelenting to the tiniest of mistakes. She had a reputation to keep and this was the way she earned her daily bread. A good performance would ultimately reflect good training, and amplify the reputation of the teacher. Every day for the past three months, her practice had started at 8 in the morning, starting with the adavus , or the warm up steps then proceeding to the jathiswaram, padam, thillana and varnam.
The whole process lasted 7 hours every day including a one hour lunch break. The whole routine was so exhausting that by the time of Thillana, she would have had drained out all her energy . The irony was that this was supposed to be the fastest dance with just plain steps and a beat out of order, the whole beauty of the dance is lost. Next came varnam where along with steps, expressions should also be accentuated . Her tired face refused to mould to the music while her legs and hands used to scream in agony.
“No put your hands straight. It looks sloppy otherwise” The teacher used to chide when her hands would sag owing to the continuing practice.
“Harder, harder, and how many times should I say Aramandalam – half sit. You are standing.” Her teacher had remarked another time when her feet refused to budge and her knees had a mind of their own.
Recollecting all those practice sessions, she made a small silent prayer . All should go well. Today was the culmination of her sweat and blood over the past few months.
She did the traditional namaskaram to mother earth before performing. Her teacher was sitting on the podium, along with the orchestra. She smiled at her student in a reassuring manner.
The dancer looked at the packed crowd. Her parents were somewhere there, praying for her all the same .The veena player strummed a few strings to check if its in order the precursor for the song.
The violinist began playing a small tune, and also the signal for her to walk centre stage and take up her position . The first dance was a tribute to Lord Ganesha, the remover of obstacles.
The guru clapped on her manjeera, the small cymbals, one ,two, three , start now…
“Mahaganapathy manasaa smaraami” “Oh great Lord, I pray to thee..”
The lights in front of the stage was flashing into her eyes, she could not see beyond the crowd. The mridangam was now played along with the violin, giving her the beats to perform. Despite her nervousness and the umpteen butterflies fluttering around, the mridangam beats somehow triggered her subconscious mind to move her legs.
All those months of practice seem to have etched the sequence and music in her subconscious such that you don’t need to remember. You present one and it automatically comes with the other.

The vibes in the music guided her steps. She was not merely dancing. Her dancing was an invocation to the Lord . She felt his presence around her and the butterflies somehow disappeared. She felt emboldened. The expressions and steps came naturally.

Highly confident after her first sequence she continued in a similar manner. By the time she was doing varnas, her expressions semmed to mould with the music. She could feel the song in her. The song and dance were together and not one from the other. Something she realized on this final day of her stage performance despite those 3 months of training.

The audience burst into applause after her performance. A beaming guru greeted her in the greenroom. “ That was a fantastic show. Your best performance to date. ” The dancer smiled back happily. “This was my arangetam after all. Shouldn’t I put in my best? ”