Introducing பார்வை (Pārvai)or The Gaze
Pārvai or The Gaze is inspired by the story of the 19th century Western romantic ballet La Bayadère (The temple dancer or devadasi) as well as the travelogue of the 18th century Dutch merchant and traveler Jacob Haafner (1754-1809). Haafner worked for the Dutch East India Company (VOC) as well as for the British colonial administration conducting, as many of his countrymen did, private business on the side. However, he was critical of the colonizers and of the behaviour of Christian missionaries in particular, and left these positions to travel along India’s east coast in a palanquin. Haafner learned several Indian languages, including Tamil. He appears to have had a genuine love for India, its nature and people and their diverse cultural practices (e.g. Bor 2013, 235-6; Honings 2019, 4 and passim). In his book published after his death in 1808, Haafner describes his love for the devadasi Mamia with whom he had a relationship of several years until she died prematurely.
La Bayadère has been criticized for its orientalist, racist and patriarchal content. While degrading elements of race, subservience and ‘othering’ have no place any longer on the contemporary stage, the ballet’s orientalist elements were quite acceptable and expected in 19th century ballets and operas. These elements include tigers, pagan fire rites, black-face(d) ‘natives’, fakirs, temple dancers in harem-pants holding flower bouquets in their hands, salacious brahmin priests, and in La Bayadère a golden dancing Shiva, a Buddha statue and the smoking of opium to reach ‘nirvana’. It is only much later that these elements become subject of artistic and political scrutiny.
The figure of the oriental female dancer appealed to Western elite audiences and, like the early ballerina, tickled the (male) gaze. However, the bayadère appears to have had no specific geographical location nor much of an agency. She remained an unattainable figure, dying a ‘romantic’ death on the stage, her love unfulfilled.
In Pārvai we turn the gaze around and look at the world of ordinary and less ordinary people in colonial South India in the 19th century through the eyes of a local actress. The play gives a voice to this female artist, Kamaladevi, who is a professional Kattaikkuttu performer, even though we do not know whether women performed in this theatrical genre at that time.
The unusual love story of Kamaladevi and Jacob ‘Boss’ is situated at the time of the Madras Great Famine, an apocalyptic event that took place in 1877-1878 that coincides with the premiere of La Bayadere in St. Petersburg. The famine was photographed by a British male photographer. In our story we have changed him into an arrogant professional woman photographer. She too is the result of our fantasy as we do not know -- but think it is plausible -- that an entrepreneurial woman photographer and explorer from an elite background might have visited India at that time.
In the subsequent posts you can follow Hanne & Rajagopal during the making Pārvai and everything that goes into a new production.
The try-out of Pārvai by the actor-singers and musicians of the Kattaikkuttu Sangam’s Repertory Company took place at the Kattaikkuttu Sangam on the 6th of January 2024.
References
Bor, Joep. 2013. “‘On the Dancers or Devadasis’: Jacob Haafner’s Account of the Eighteenth-Century Indian Temple Dancers”, in Frank Kouwenhoven, Frank and James Kippen (eds), Music, Dance and the Art of Seduction, Delft: Eburon, 2013: 233-60.
Honings, Risk (2019), ‘Een koloniale idealist in de Oost Met Jacob Haafner op reis in India’, Suprihatin, Christina T., Munif Yusuf and Jaap Grave (eds.),Weg tot het oosten: Afscheidsbundel voor Kees Groeneboer, Program Studi Belanda, Fakultas Ilmu Pengetahuan Budaya Kampus Universitas Indonesia, pp. 1-9 [https://www.rickhonings.nl/wp-content/uploads/2020/11/Een-koloniale-idealist-in-de-Oost-min.pdf]