Nanette Melville

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Nanette Melville on Buzzinebollywood.com

FILM INTERVIEW: NANETTE MELVILLE

‘Nrityagram: For the Love of Dance’ Highlights History of First Modern Gurukul

By: Parimal M. Rohit
May 23, 2011

If life imitates art and art imitates life, photographer-turned-filmmaker Nanette “Nan” Melville has found a way to capture both concepts in her one-of-a-kind documentary on Indian classical dance in Nrityagram: For the Love of Dance. Founded just over 20 years ago by danseuse Protima Bedi near the Indian metropolis of Bangalore, Ms. Melville’s film is one of the first to ever expose the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble (NDE) and has already screened at several festivals, including the recently concluded Newport Beach Film Festival.

 
Part of the Odissi genre of Indian classical dance form born some 2,000 years ago and a traditional art-form practiced only in temples throughout the Indian state of Orissa until the 1950s, the genre organized itself to become more performance-based in the latter half of the twentieth century.
 
The classical dance form evolved into an institutionalized art-form with the founding of Nrityagram by Ms. Bedi, which was established in 1990 and is the first-ever modern-day resident school (or Gurukul). Literally meaning “dance village,” Nrityagram separates itself from other Indian classical dance genres in which NDE “members live together and study their art with master gurus in the Gurukul."
 
As the twentieth century prepared to come to a close, Ms. Melville, a South Africa native living in New York City, captured photos of the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble when it debuted its unique dance style to the Big Apple in 1996. Featuring her work in The New York Times, Ms. Melville was so mesmerized by what she saw in the City, she readily accepted an invitation by Ms. Bedi to visit the school and dance village in eastern India. 
 
Once there, producing and directing a documentary on Nrityagram and its disciples was quite the no-brainer. The film was finally finished in 2009 and debuted at New York City’s annual Dance on Camera Festival in January 2010.
 
“I was first introduced to the group when they visited New York on a tour. I was assigned to photograph them (by The New York Times),” Ms. Melville told Buzzine in an exclusive interview, adding that she thrice traveled to India to capture the life and times of the dance village on film while also researching its history. “I was absolutely enthralled with them and with the dance.”
 
Indeed, while the film runs just under 30 minutes in length, Ms. Melville hopes its impact on the dance form will be far greater and longer lasting. As Ms. Melville pointed out in the press notes about Nrityagram: For the Love of Dance, she hopes to “capture for posterity the story of the dance village and the dancers, and how they promote and develop the Odissi dance form” while ensuring the film “be used to promote awareness of Nrityagram (and help) with fundraising for the school.”
 
Just the same, Ms. Melville also wanted to pay proper respects to Ms. Bedi, who was killed in a 1998 landslide in a village near the Indian-Nepali border at the ripe age of 49, just one year after her son committed suicide. A little more than 10 years after her death, Ms. Melville’s Nrityagram: For the Love of Dance was finally ready to be seen.
 
“People have said she may have had a premonition she was moving on,” Ms. Melville said of Ms. Bedi, who apparently made sure the NDE would be able to move on and thrive despite her absence. “Although she didn’t ask me to do the film, she loved my photographs, and I kind of felt committed and (like) she was commissioning, in a sense. 
 
“What I come away with is a sense of fulfillment that I have been able to advance her story and Nrityagram because they deserve to be seen, aside from learning the dance and seeing India from a completely different and intimate viewpoint.”
 
In bringing Orissa’s contributions to Indian classical dance to the forefront, the former literature student and South Africa native is working on raising funds to transform Nrityagram: For the Love of Dance into a feature length film.