K. Saveshan explores the human-earth relationship through dance

What does it mean to call the earth our mother when human civilisation is built on extracting from her? The tension between dependence and exploitation formed the conceptual core of K. Sarveshan’s Prithvi, with Amritha Murali lending vocal support, on the opening evening of Pancha Bhootha Bharatham, the 28th annual thematic festival, hosted by Natyarangam, the dance wing of Narada Gana Sabha Trust. As well as their presence in the human body and in the processes that sustain life, the five-day festival explroes the Pancha Bhootas — Akasha, Vayu, Agni, Apah and Prithvi — with each day devoted to one element.

In her introductory talk, resource person Dr Sudha Seshayyan placed the five elements within the Indian understanding of the cosmos. Of these, Prithvi, she explained, represents structure and support, and is associated with stability and solidarity. She invoked the Bhumi Sukta, the Atharvaveda’s hymn to Mother Earth, with its declaration that the earth is the mother and humanity, her child. When Sarveshan addressed humanity’s exploitation of the earth.

Sarveshan extended the idea into the body, the idea gained contemporary resonance later. Referring to the connection between humus and human existence, he described humanity as eternally tethered to the earth. Prithvi became, in his conception, both the ground of devotion, the recipient of rain and the starting point of spiritual ascent through the Mooladhara. This movement between the physical and the spiritual set the vocabulary of the performance.