INDIA:	Sharon Lowen, The Dance of Discovery

[cont'd.]

There were other things to learn, too. The relationship between a serious student and teacher in India involves a total commitment by both student and teacher that is almost unknown in the West. The student is submissive to the guru, like a young dependent. The guru watches and comments on the student's every move. The guru also makes a tremendous time commitment to the student, and in some ways takes responsibility for him or her. It is like being taken into the guru's family.

Lowen says that she "learned very early on when I lived in a small town in Orissa that my behavior had to be equivalent of a good daughter-in-law, and that one's personal life has to be above reproach, and that's an aspect of respect for the art."

The Indian dance world has nicknamed her "the godmother" for her willingness to give tips to young aspirants who need to learn correct behavior and how to interact in the traditional Indian teacher-student relationship. She, herself, is a teacher at the American Embassy School in New Delhi and teaches at workshops in India and abroad, in addition to keeping a busy schedule of performances and of choreographing new works.

Today, Lowen is focused on preserving the Odissi dance tradition. Indians tell her that her performances give them an opportunity "to see something we don't see anymore" because Odissi dance, she explains, is "almost like a throwback-not in the sense of a museum piece, but in maintaining certain essences." Indian critics judge dance by fairly strict criteria-the execution of movements, symbolic gestures, rhythm and grace, and also the abhinaya, or facial expression, in the dance styles-all of which teachers have passed down to students for centuries.

The goal of classical Indian dance is "to go deeply into the psyche, deeply into a shared myth, and it is deeply spiritual in the most universal and humanistic way that can be," Lowen says. "It touches on the divine that is shared by everyone." In addition to Odissi and Manipuri, Lowen has mastered a third eastern regional style, Chhau.

Manipuri culture is more akin to its Burmese neighbors than to other Indian traditions, but it also carries a lot of Indian tribal influences. Even the Manipuri language is Tibeto-Burman, a family different from other languages spoken across India. "Manipuri dance is extremely graceful and flowing," Lowen says, "like a bamboo moved by the wind, and there is no emphasis on facial movement."

The Chhau style of dance arose from martial arts traditions combined with dance traditions of northeast India, and was customarily performed by men. Indeed, Lowen was the first woman to perform Chhau as a soloist after her guru introduced her in 1978, precisely to prove that a woman could perform this previously all-male dance creditably. "There are three Chhau styles," Lowen says. "Two are performed wearing masks. With my puppetry background I loved learning the mask form. But what really drew me to Chhau is that unlike most Indian dance forms, the legs and the torso are used expressively."

Lowen is best known as an exponent of the Odissi style, which originated in the eastern coastal state of Orissa. "Odissi is a dance form that has sculpture," she says. There is a lot of relief sculpture of dancers on the temples of Orissa. Odissi dates to the second century BC. It was a dance performed by women dedicated to service in the temples of Orissa, and as with the other forms of Indian dance, it arose from spiritual consciousness. Not only is it an offering to the gods, it is an exposition of the shared myths of the people.

Lowen is a leading artist of Odissi, a dance from Orissa. Odissi takes inspiration from the devotional dances depicted in the scriptures of ancient Hindu temples at Konarak and Puri back to the second century BC.