Honing The Creative Process

7/23/2019 Honing The Creative Process

http://slidepdf.com/reader/full/honing-the-creative-process 1/10

Dance postures drawn by Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra

HONING THE CREATIVE PROCESS DR. ROHINI DANDAVATE



He who works with his hands is a laborer.

He who works with his hands and his head is a craftsman.

He who works with his hands and his head and his heart is an artist.”

St. Francis of Assisi (Italian religious leader).

Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra (Guruji) was a choreographer par

excellence. He had the skillfulness of a laborer, the mastery of a

craftsman and the passion of an artist. A creative genius, he

choreographed approximately two hundred solo dance numbers and

fifty dance dramas in his lifetime and Odissi dancers all over the world

continue to present his works to this day.

Honing the creative process was his way of life. Born in a family of

palm leaf painters and percussionists he had wide exposure to the

world of colors, textures and sound. His home in Raghurajpur (Odisha)

was located near the Hindu temple and the ongoing singing of kirtans

(spiritual songs) and verses from Hindu scriptures in the temple

triggered unconscious learning. Amidst the milieu of these art forms itwas natural that he was attracted to the dance of the Gotipuas, the

boy dancers of Raghurajpur. The immersion and practical experience

in dance, music, theatre and painting from a very early age was the

foundation of his power of imagination, reflection and expressiveness.

His artistic quality was noticeable in the most mundane

activities of life. Describing his paan making, Ranjana Gauhar,a leading Odissi dancer writes,

The way he opened his paan box, the selection andtrimming of the betel leaf, the choice of ingredients and

their application- it was as though his fingers were

performing some pure dance item during each



meticulous stage of preparation. The finale was whenhe would wrap up the betel leaf in the most delicate

manner…

Photo 1. Guruji making paan.

Creativity encompassed his every action. Besides

choreographing brilliant dance numbers, he spent every

moment of his life in lending beauty to anything he touched.

During dance tours, he was often seen organizing our bags

according to size, shape and color. Though his primary motive

was to secure the luggage, in the process of stacking he was

exploring shapes, forms and levels, which he would later

translate in the dances he created. His observant eye was

constantly searching and absorbing ideas.



Photo 2. Playful moments with Guruji on Marina beach,

Chennai.

For years, during our performances Guruji spent hours

applying face make up for all the dancers. He made us all

look like Apsaras (celestial maidens). Immaculate designs on

our forehead and precisely lined eyes and eyebrows brought

out the natural beauty of each dancer. In times when tailored

and easy to wear costumes were not available, he woulddrape the sari for each performer. Every fold and pleat was

uniform in size, length and well pinned, ensuring that it would

not open while dancing. He even tied the ghungroos (bells) on

the anklets, each bind perfectly aligned, knotted and secured.



Particular about every detail in the overall costume he would

inspect each one of us before we entered the stage.

Photo 3. Guruji tendering the tulsi plant in the porch of his

home in Cuttack.

At home he was often seen tendering the plants in the front

porch or sweeping the pathway during leisure. These

activities were not chores for him, it was his quiet time to

contemplate and observe the environment, understand the

flow in the swaying of the leaves and branches of the plants

and notice the movements of the small creatures. Often we

had to stand and watch and then replicate the same

movements. His open mind was always engaged in idea

generation.



Photo 4. Guruji etching patterns on his dance floor, in Cuttack

He created the beautiful bamboo ceiling of his dance studio

and etched meticulous designs on the floor in the dance room

in his Cuttack house with the same passion and precision as

he did in his dance choreography.

The engineer in him craved to explore new technologies.

Cameras, tape recorders, video players, spools, audiotapes

were his toys. Every time there was an addition in his

collection of gadgets, he spent days learning to operate it.

When recording studios with sophisticated editing machines

were not accessible, he edited music at home accurately.

Exploring video cameras and its functions was his favorite

leisure time activity. Though not formally trained in an



educational institution, his curiosity and quest to know more

led him to using different ways of learning.

My objective in sharing these moments of Guruji’s life was to highlight

the ways of his incessant exploration, discovery, learning and

adapting. Developing creative capacity in individuals is about finding

fresh and innovative solutions to problems, and identifying

opportunities to improve the way in which we do things. Constant

engagement and the urge to learn more were the hallmark

characteristics that nurtured his creativity and creative thinking.

Elizabeth Sanders and Pieter Jan Stappers in their book Convivial

Toolbox (2012) have defined creativity as “the ability to produce novel

and appropriate works”. They developed a framework for everyday

creativity in which four levels have been identified: doing, adapting,

making and creating. According to Sanders and Stappers, the basic

level in human creative activities is doing, the next level being

adapting, which is explained as “to make something one’s own bychanging it in some way”. The third level of creativity is making,

which is “the motivation to use one’s hands and mind to make or build

something that did not exist before”. The forth and the most advanced

level according to them is creating, in which the “creative efforts are

fueled by passion and guided by a high level of experience”. Creating

involves innovation. Sanders and Stappers have developed the

following diagram to illustrate that “individual creativity is not only inthe head but in the heart as well: it involves emotion. And creativity

takes place in the body. It is evoked through activity and motion”.



Source: Convivial Toolbox, Pg 41

Applying this framework helps in understanding Guruji’s process of

thinking. He was constantly looking for opportunities to submerge in,

allowing new ideas to come his way. The experience he gained through

participation facilitated his meaning making process. The insights he

gained from the different experiences were applied in the dances he

choreographed.

He observed shapes, sizes, colors, and textures, flow of things in

nature and the ways in which people conducted their selves. His



curious and attentive nature was constantly searching for models that

could be transformed into stylized dance movements. His ability to

recognize and note details helped him translate human moods,

movements, and feelings in his dance making. The visuals he created

in his mind reflected clearly in his dance choreography, both in his

expressive numbers, while emoting a story or enacting characters and

in the pure dance numbers. The songs he based his dances on were

stylized acts from the everyday life of commoners. In his pure dance

numbers, the geometrical patterns, shapes and forms were drawn

using the traditional dance steps, gaits, twirls and jumps. Without

deviating from the traditional form, he continuously experimented the

form, use of time, balance, space, and levels.

Graham McFee, in his book ”Understanding Dance” writes:

Dance is aestheticized movement, but aestheticization involves a

transformation”(pg 51, Understanding Dance by Graham McFee)

Mcfee explains this point by giving an example of the everyday act of

sweeping. According to McFee “first I see a person, broom in hand,sweeping the floor in a graceful, elegant fluid way and so I concentrate

on the grace, line and so on of the sweeping movement”. When this

same action is used as a motif in dance, it becomes “aestheticized”

movement. This kind of transformation in movement is used in making

dance. This transformation or aestheticization which Mcfee discusses in

his book is visible in the dances and dance dramas Guruji

choreographed. For example, in the dance drama based on the storyof the Konark temple, he strung together postures, steps and

movements in a manner which brought to life the architecture of the

Konark temple. He used platforms on the stage to create different

levels and placed tableaux of dancers on each, similar to the stone



statues carved on various levels in the temple. In dance dramas on

episodes from Ramayana, Bhagvad Geeta and other Hindu scriptures

the complex human emotions and moods of the characters were

evoked through apt movements.

As young students in his Gurukul often we had to assist him in the

various tasks that he was involved in. It was cumbersome and felt

meaningless. Little did we understand then that allowing oneself to

engage in different activities with an open mind was as essential as

lessons in dance. Living in his Gurukul (Guru’s home) and learning

dance from Guruji initiated the process of fostering creative thinking.

References

Pradakshina (2001): Tribute to Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra on the 75th

Birthday Celebrations, New Delhi

Sanders, Elizabeth. & Stappers, Pieter Jan. (2012) Convivial Toolbox:

Generative Research For the Front End of Design, BIS Publisher,

Amsterdam, The Netherlands.

Mcfee, Graham. (1992) Understanding Dance, Routledge, London and

New York.

About the Author

Rohini Doshi Dandavate holds a doctoral degree in Cultural Policy andArts Administration from the Ohio State University. As an artist in the

Arts in Education Program of the Ohio Arts Council, she has conductedworkshops and lecture demonstrations in schools and colleges in Ohio

on Odissi dance since 1994. She has offered courses in Odissi dance asa Visiting Faculty. She received her graduate degree in Odissi dance

from Kala Vikas Kendra, College of Indian Dance and Music, Cuttack,

India. Her gurus are Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, Guru Raghunath

Dutta, Guru Ramani Ranjan Jena, and Dr. Menaka Thakkar

Documents

Honing The Creative Process