ON TOP OF THE WORLD

The background music beats loudly and sounds rather catchy for me. Four young Indian girls in dazzling red Punjabi suits with colourful-beaded veils suddenly appear from the backstage. They dance with full of energy tuned to the lovely beats. The sheer fluidity and grace of their dancing invokes a wonderful feeling in me. I was mesmerized by their performance as I have never seen a Bhangra or maybe Bhagra dance (well, that’s what the M.C said) before. After the energetic dance performance, what really comes to my mind is one of the plays that Dr. Edwin has mentioned in class “Dance like a Man” by Mahesh Dattani. After reading the short extracts, I feel the drive to learn more about the dance form mentioned in the particular play. Basically, this play is about two Bharatanatyam dancers. Bharatanatyam is a well-known dance art from Chennai. It is rather fascinating and interesting as it deals with the general inhibitions to a man taking dance as a career which is usually and traditionally performed by women; the relationship between a husband and wife and how their own thwarted ambitions and frustrations affect their own daughter who is in love with a man who has nothing to do with the art scene at all. Thus, this brings up the issue of preserving our very own roots and culture in today’s generations. The other play “In the Name of Love” by Ramli Ibrahim also deals with the similar issues when Mak Su mentioned that “Nowadays people don’t really care about us anymore”. The Makyong dance “has become-not dead or alive”. Reading both extracts of plays really become an eye opener for me. Through my personal experiences, it is sorry to say that this scenario is actually happening to the new generations. In our high-tech age of flat screen, movies, DVD, Play station and so on, not many of the youngsters nowadays really know or care about any traditional dance form. As for me, I like to watch dance performances especially zapin dance and I enjoy watching them a whole lot. Even though I am not skillfully gifted with the dance talent, deep in my heart I treasure the uniqueness and originality of our culture. I always experience an unspeakable feeling whenever I watch a dance being performed. I always imagine myself as one of the dancers moving gracefully on the stage. How does one describe such a feeling: exhilarating, fantastic, incredible? I feel as if I am “on top of the world”, so to speak.