Apricot Season

Jonathan Hollander stumbled upon India when he was 16. "I have a memory, as vivid today as it was then, of the great Bharatnatyam guru, Parvati Kumar – I actually thought his name was Guruji – giving a lesson in Bombay. I remember the feet of little girls stamping on white marble tiles, the green monsoon light, the bells around their ankles, the geometry of their movements, the combination of physically punishing discipline with a higher element of something like spirituality. I found it astonishing, and now I strive for that myself."

So began a love for India that grew ever more sincere and robust, enduring the usual trials with which this country tests new suitors. The first time he came back with his troupe, they all piggybacked off a Fulbright intended for Jonathan alone. "It was terrifying. We had no resources – we’d be travelling around in 2nd class non-a/c, arriving in cities where we knew nobody, in Vyzag, in Tirupati, just throwing ourselves into an abyss." There was always someone to rescue them, to make a performance happen, and that memory still infoms Jonathan’s grateful feelings towards India, even in these days of adulatory journalists and suites at the Taj Mansingh.

The Battery Dance Company has now done more work in India than any American dance company in history. They’ve visited seventeen cities, and Jonathan is forthright about Delhi not being his favourite. His early audiences seemed insincere. "Not there to see but to be seen…" he he muses, "But this will be our fourth performance here, so lets see." When I leave him, the tables have been turned, and I am left hoping with a weird fervency that the audience will not disappoint the dancers.

He makes it easy for us: the performance is entrancing. The dancers are almost flawless, but the choreography carries a slight suggestion of dissonance and free-form, like memories of dancing alone in their rooms as kids. The solo performances seem to speak of each dancer’s character and their diverse origins – as a Serbian asylee, or an immigrant from apartheid South Africa – the way wines speak of soil and climate. Heads in the audience dip and roll like coconuts in the surf.

Afterward, Jonathan is in the Green Room, trying not to talk with his mouth full of kabab. His opivion ov Devhi is (gulp) greatly improved. Really? I was still getting over the people in the row behind me who had brought popcorn and crunchmunchcrunched their way through the show; on top of the wretched speakers that threw a static wet blanket over Jonathan’s painstakingly arranged score. But his grace toward this country is buoyant. He points out that sponsors were not hard to find; that people sat packed in the aisles; that no cellphones rang. "India has always been ready to recognize an act of homage, and to respond with so much generosity and support." And I concede, that in those moments when the performace took flight, every salty-lipped one of us was carried away with it. So he is content, and will keep coming back.