Exploring the Source and Mystery of Performance Energy

In 2016, Shebana Coelho went to India (where she is originally from) to take a Navarasa Sadhana workshop with famed Sanskrit theatre practitioner G. Venu at Natanakairali Arts Center in Kerala. Navarasa Sadhana, as noted in the ancient Sanskrit text the Natya Shastra, is the systematic and daily practice of the Nine Rasas (emotions) by actors with the aim of strengthening their capacities for producing a dramatic aesthetical experience in viewers. This workshop was a catalyzing event in Shebana’s journey as a writer and performer. It opened a door inside her, leading to her first solo play, The Good Manners of Colonized Subjects, made of poetry and dance. Years later, Shebana wanted to reconnect with Venu. In this conversation, the two discuss the workshop and its impact, Venu’s journey as an artist, and how he has engaged with risk, discipline, and mystery. Shebana addresses G. Venu as Venuji. In Hindi, the “ji” is an honorific suffix that shows respect for teachers and elders.

Shebana Coelho: Venuji, it’s been years since we’ve talked and I must say, you look really well, and I feel it’s because you are doing what you love.

G. Venu: That is true. Absolutely. I always did that. I’ve come across so many difficulties and challenges. But still I enjoy doing what I do.

Shebana: I wanted to tell you a little bit about what happened to me right after the workshop in 2016. It is one of the most powerful and mysterious experiences I have had. I am still amazed to be someone who performs on stage, especially solo plays. Because I was terrified of the stage, even as a child and certainly as an adult. I’m laughing to tell you this, but really, I want to unravel this performing spirit. For the first year after I returned to the United States from your workshop, I couldn’t pursue anything because I had a film to finish. Then around March 2018, I said to myself, “Shebana, this short poem about inviting fear in for tea is the seed of a longer play. And it’s connected to the ripple effects of the British and Portuguese colonization of India—in a felt body sense, an excavation of sorts.” I said, “I’m going to develop this play, and I’m going to rent a space and present it in Santa Fe in August.”

And that’s what I did. But, Venuji, I'd never done anything like that before. All I had done on stage before that moment was some dance, some flamenco on stage in groups. And I had directed and written one full length and few short plays—all with the firm belief that the best place for me was off stage, behind the scenes, behind the camera.

So I want to ask: When you hear a story like that, how do you see it connecting to the experience of the Navarasa Sadhanas? I can see you laughing!

Venu: Well, first of all, it is not just a classification of emotions. Navarasa Sadhana was originally conceived by sages in India. Sages! Their life is something extraordinary. My brother is actually a sage in the Himalayas. It took him to places beyond his imagination.

For example, one of his practices is to go to a cave to contemplate a particular theme and remain there till sunrise. This could last for two weeks or even a month. Once you go on concentrating, you get to that essence. That’s what we have to understand about learning and the strength of concentration that the sages did, and their ability to bring knowledge to us. That’s why all the arts/sciences composed by the Muni sages are very, very authentic and very, very effective both then and now, at all times.

When I began researching Nava Rasas and this actor training methodology evolved by the sages, its power astonished me. But you know what happened in India? Actor training runs into your colonization.

Shebana: How do you mean?

Not valuing what is ours is part of the impact of colonization.

Venu: The National School of Drama in Delhi was founded after India became independent, after 1947. From the start, they were teaching Western masters—Stanislavski and others. After one or two batches had been trained, they established schools of drama everywhere in India. At the same time, India itself has such a wonderful system in the Natyashastra. There is nothing like it in terms of a theatrical treatise.

I became aware of how much it stands apart more than thirty years ago when I became one of the directors in the World Theatre Project based in Sweden. Our first assignment was to look into ancient theatrical documents. In Western theatrical tradition, you have Poetics by Aristotle with around fifty pages of the original work being available. In East Asia, there is the Japanese treatise, Kadensho, A Secret Book of Noh Art, dating back to the fifteenth century. Its English translation comes to around 150 pages. And then there’s our Natyashastra in Sanskrit: this vast treatise of 6000 slokas, verses, about every single aspect of theatre, including this actor training methodology which has stylistic acting and realistic acting. I am exploring all of this. We know it’s ancient, somewhere between second century AD to third century BC. But our own historians have not really given us a date for it.

Shebana: Not valuing what is ours is part of the impact of colonization. I remember you telling us that the Natyashastra would have been written on a leaf or some kind of old paper. And put in a book. And I wonder, what were people acting at the time that the Natyashastra was written down? What kind of theatre? What were people using it for? 

Venu: It was connected with the religion, Hinduism. We cannot ignore it. Because first of all, who was the greatest actor?

Shebana: Shiva?

Venu: Shiva Nataraja. I follow him not as a god or deity but as a theatre person. So right from the ancient Indus valley civilization, you can find representations of the Nataraja. From the time of India’s origins, you see a deification of a great actor.

Shebana: So the magic is old, and it is real! I loved that we were using choreographies from Kutiyattam which is also so ancient. To this day, I can feel the power of those mythic scenes we emoted: Bhima’s rage when his wife is mistreated; Ravana’s fury when Mount Kailash falls in front of him suddenly. I felt so challenged, even as I was inspired. I was the only one in our batch of nine who was new to performing. Everyone else had been doing it for years.

Venu: Yes, my workshop is still open to all. Whether you are trained or not, we all are sitting in one workshop. I’ve developed a plan, a methodology. First, I introduce what I'm going to teach you. Then my training starts with the eyes, different techniques. Usually, people have some sort of transformation right after the eye training because they never had any exposure to the eye. Even today, this happens to all kinds of people who attend. Some are young highly trained classical dancers, or they have graduated from the drama schools, or they come from Western countries. People have even come from the field of opera.

Then we go to the Nine Nava Rasas, starting with Sringara (a profound bliss) working with the experience behind them. And then every day, we also have the Vyabhichari Bhavas. That is a realistic side of the methodology, the less stylized.

Shebana: Those were the improvisations that we did. I remember I did a scene inspired by Charlotte Perkins Gilman’s “The Yellow Wallpaper” about anger and isolation and another one about a high school bully. There was a whole list of possibilities you gave us…and we could choose any space all over the campus, to perform it outdoors.

Venu: Yes, it was to explore the experiences for “Nirveda,” the first one of the Vyabhichari Bhavas. They are poverty, disease, shame, insult, shout, torture, loss of dear and near ones, and philosophy of life.

Shebana: …and you told us famous or infamous stories of improvisations that really shocked neighbors and staff. Like someone who hung upside down from a tree and how the cook came running…

Venu: …she came running with a ladder and rescued him!

Shebana: When I came in 2016, the workshops were just beginning.

Venu: Nowadays, every month there is a two-week workshop. I tell the manager to let everyone who wants to learn, learn it. I'm there teaching. 

Shebana: So if I returned to take a workshop…

Venu: You would return to do a Phase Two workshop. Overall, there are up to eight phases of each workshop that I’ve developed.

Shebana: You know how your daughter Kapila Venu performed Sitaparityagam when I was there, and I wrote an article about it?

Venu: Yes, I remember, for the Natharki website.

Shebana: That story Kapila performed about Sita being abandoned in the forest, the one that begins after the epic poem Ramayana ends… Well, when I was developing my play, The Good Manners… it turned out that this is a story that my grandmother would tell my mother. It’s a story that was really important to her. So in my play, I actually tell this Sita story, a woman returning to the earth. It’s such a visceral story. I just love it. Some days, I feel I’m falling into the earth. Meaning, there is a deep call to return to some root and dance under trees. All part of the mystery of what comes next! But I also think the fact of seeing a female solo on stage during that pivotal time was so inspiring. Not to mention the actual performance of Kapila that just blew me away.

Venu: Yes, it is rare to have this ancient theatre that gives space to women on stage. Greek theatre doesn’t have it. No women on stage in Shakespeare’s time. In Noh and Kabuki traditions of Japan, male actors played female parts. But Bharata had insisted that female characters should be performed only by women. And Kutiyattam, which Kapila was performing, gives women a central space. Nangiar Koothu is the tradition of the female solos of Kutiyattam.

Shebana: It’s dizzying and gratifying to reflect on all this. What really strikes me about you, Venuji, is how you have followed things. You started dancing kathakali when you were, what was it, eight? And then you met your Kutiyattam teacher, Guru Ammannur Madhava Chakyar, and you toured together. I remember you saying that as you studied with him, you felt you were almost breathing his breath. I always think of that line when I think of you. So I want to ask you: What is your relationship with risk?

I was thinking: If I don't learn it, then who will? I want another generation to be trained in it, not just me.

Venu: My life is full of risk because what I thought at that time was: this knowledge is very rare. At that time, in my thirties, I was working in the drama department of a school, and I had a good salary. But once I saw my Guru Ammannur Madhava Chakyar perform kutiyattam, that was enough. I left everything and came to this town, Irinjalakuda, rented a house—no salary, nothing. I was thinking: If I don't learn it, then who will? I want another generation to be trained in it, not just me. Once there is fire inside, nothing else matters.

Shebana: I feel that in this world, it can be a struggle to follow passion. Or it has been for me, even as I’ve done it. So I’m curious what the struggle has been for you, what are some of the challenges?

Venu: The passion, that is the main thing. I was so impressed when I saw my Guru. When he came on stage, he started concentrating with his eyes. I could see that it is something different than whatever I have seen so far. My Guru was very old then. I thought, “If I don't understand a drop of this, my life is a waste.” I started learning and gradually convinced him to start a school. And I organized tours abroad for us. I also started publishing my books. And the money that was needed started coming.

Shebana: The other word that comes to mind when I think about you is discipline. You finish things, big things! You’ve written massive books on mudras, on your life, and you have kept the Navarasa Sadhana workshops going. Even through the pandemic shutdowns, you offered them online, and now people from all over the world go to Kerala to study with you. Plus, you’re now directing a play. How would you describe your relationship with discipline? How do you cultivate your connection to it? 

Venu: That relationship with discipline began when I was nineteen years old and was learning mudras from a teacher. I knew, without having any money, that I wanted to come up with a notation system for it. And then when that was done, I had a dream to document every mudra! But I'm the most unsystematic person. I cannot make a schedule and do it. But I can defer all other entertainments. For example, cinema is very popular in Kerala. I don't go to any cinema. I don't go for public functions. So many people invite me. I don’t go. Because I'm committed to other things.

Shebana: So you choose where you put your focus. You say no to things so you can say yes to your passion.

Venu: Yes, that is the main thing. So much depends on your physical strength too. For that you need a basic physical fitness, so you don’t get too much back pain or knee pain. So I choose to do basic exercises from my training and tradition. On July first, I'll be eighty years old.

Shebana: You don't look it. Not at all. I feel you seem younger than when we met in 2016. I’m just so honored to be having this conversation with you and hearing about your journey.

Venu: Everything will happen if you're sincere and if you are genuine. If you're genuine, everything will happen automatically. You need not worry about it. The minute I retired from actively performing kutiyattam, there was a teaching offer that came from Singapore. And the journey of doing Navarasa Sadhana workshops began.

Shebana: I’m heartened to hear this. I’ve been an independent artist for over twenty years now, and I will tell you I have despaired many times. It is still one of the biggest surprises of my life that I am performing. Next week, I’ll be performing The Good Manners… play at the Indigenous community of A:shiwi/Zuni here in New Mexico. It’s been a while since I have performed the whole play all together. I’m also developing something new in nature, connected to trees and stones. That’s why it feels so auspicious to be talking to you now and just invoking again the power of those ancient texts and sages. Because in the past year, I’ve had such moments of doubt and feeling lost and wondering…

Venu: But you are very active, and you're very courageous, and you are doing very different things, which not a lot of people are. I see. I follow all your posts from different venues, different countries.

Shebana: Thank you Venuji. Honestly, it all began with your workshop. There’s a beautiful quote from you in an article I read. You are paraphrasing the sage Bharata: “An actor has to create a field of imagination” to bring the essence of this Navarasa Sadhana experience into the body. I feel something like that happened to me in 2016, and it's still happening in mysterious ways. I’m all for mystery. Shukriya, thank you. Onwards.