International News
India’s growing soft power in China
The India-China soft power embrace, evident from the runaway success of Aamir Khan’s Dangal, appears to be getting warmer. On a cold November evening, when even hardy Beijingers were considering the wisdom of staying at home, hundreds of Chinese headed for Future theatre, one of the emerging cultural hubs in the city.
They were attracted by the prospects of a joint on-stage dance and musical performance by Indian and Chinese artistes. Rukmini Chatterjee, the veteran choreographer and dancer, was marshalling the performance from the Indian side. She was joined by the Chinese contemporary choreographer Aimin Teng. The storyline of Shiv Yin was deceptively simple: the triumph of love over barriers of anger, jealousy and even violence. But it was the mediation of the storyline with classical Indian dance forms — Kathak and Bharatnatyam — and Chinese contemporary dance finesse that infused soul into the performance. Both the young Indian artistes — Kathak dancer Kantika Mishra and Bharatanatyam performer Souraja Tagore — held their ground in front of a predominantly foreign audience.
The fluidity, energy and masculine elegance of the Chinese artistes — Chen Xin, Chen Xiuzhuang, Jia Tianyu and others — belonging to The Beijing City Contemporary Dance Company, blended easily with the feminine grace of the Indian performers. “I don’t think I will call Shiv Yin a manifestation of artistic fusion,” said Ms. Chatterjee in a conversation with The Hindu. “While there are similarities between our artistic heritages, there are also stark distinctions. We, therefore, have two distinct styles — Indian and Chinese — in dialogue with each other rather than in fusion.”
Artistic communication
Nevertheless, the choreographer, who spent 27 years in Paris before moving into India, is all for a pervasive Indian and Chinese artistic communication in the future. “I learnt from my stay in China so far that the spiritual and philosophical content of the Indian artistic tradition is apparently stronger. But the contemporary Chinese performers have a much better grasp of the physicality of their art, probably because of a powerful martial arts background. We need to learn from that.”
At a deeper lever, the storyline of Shiv Yin flirted with the Taoist philosophical concept of Yin and Yang. In doing so, the performance echoed the core of the Yin and Yang principle. In Taoist tradition, Yin and Yang describe the interconnectedness and interdependence of seemingly opposite or contrary forces, as the basis of creation.
After an outing to the coastal city of Fuzhou, the artistes from the two countries now travel to India, where performances at the Serendipity festival in Goa, Ahmedabad and Delhi are slated later this month. Shiv Yin, in drawing Chinese audiences, may have benefited by the mega-success of Dangal, which has generated much interest and attuned young people to India’s fascinating if not turbulent transition.
Among other undertakings which have kept India’s soft-power push alive, yoga, arguably, continues to remain on top of the tree. In fact, China’s Minzu University, headquartered in Kunming, has now begun to offer the country’s first master’s degree in yoga. The three-year course will include two years of study in China and a final year in India. Classes will be detailed, covering lessons on yoga asanas, yoga physiology, yoga anatomy, yoga therapy and meridian theory, so central to acupuncture in traditional Chinese medicine.
