Performance blues: Should artists acknowledge mistakes made on stage, or hope the audience hasn't noticed?

At a Kathak recital recently, I was astonished to see a guru correcting her student on stage during performance. Usually, performers have each others’ backs when a mistake is made so that the audience is rarely the wiser. While the more informed audience members would know, there is not much in the behaviour of the performers themselves that indicates the faux pas — no embarrassed, accusatory or or stricken looks that would alert the audience. So, when the guru at this performance, who was sitting amongst the musicians and conducting the recital, would not allow the performer to go ahead when she made a mistake in the padhanth, I was impressed and also a bit disbelieving.  The student herself was most willing to be corrected on stage even though she is also a teacher, and that concert was to mark the naming of her own dance school. Later, I mentioned this to the guru and she said, “Of course. One cannot let a mistake go uncorrected. There is a tradition of the guru correcting the student even during performance. It is very easy to make small mistakes in rhythm and everyone understands and accepts this. The learning and teaching process continues even during performance.” [caption id=“attachment_5138421” align=“alignnone” width=“825”]  Dance forms like Kathak, Bharatanatyam involve executing complex and intricate rhythmic patterns and mistakes are quite possible. REUTERS[/caption] Dance forms like Kathak, Bharatanatyam involve executing complex and intricate rhythmic patterns and mistakes are quite possible. Part of an artist’s journey as a performer involves being able to cope with mistakes on stage — mistakes they may themselves commit or accompanying musicians might, or the technical support might. The curtains might go up too quickly or the spotlight might be in the wrong place on stage; one might forget the lyrics of the song. More serious lapses — in raga or tala — are also possible. A leading Carnatic vocalist, while improvising in a concert, made a mistake in the eduppu — the place in the tala cycle where the composition’s line begins. When the violinist who followed maintained that “mistake”, the vocalist grinned and kept it up. So a mistake was converted into a twist in presentation. In dance recitals, wardrobe malfunctions are always lurking; these are often trivial matters that go unnoticed and unaddressed without puncturing the magical separation of the stage and the audience. But not always. A leading Bharatanatyam dancer created a record of sorts when the salangai (anklets) on her feet kept slipping! This was something that could just not be ignored – by the performer herself or the audience. Another dancer asked indignantly how can a dancer of any caliber allow that sort of mishap? But it happens, and worse.

The artist needs a thin and sensitive skin to engage with her art but a thick one to engage with the rocky terrain of performance.

The stage is a separate, magical place where only beauty and skill abound; it does not admit of imperfections. But only in myth is it perfect. In actual fact, it swarms with mistakes of all sorts. Of course, the more seasoned a performer, the  fewer the mistakes; and the greater the number of performers, the greater the mistakes. The challenge is to retain the magicality of the stage despite the mistakes, big and small. The very separation of the stage as a space distinct from the audience gives rise to an entirely new way of looking at performance. A raised platform, the stage, curtains, all these are devices for the separation. In traditional dance forms like Kathakali, Kuchipudi etc. the performance space is demarcated by a screen held by a couple of the troupe members. This is essential, for performance is not of this world. Theatre and dance are not of this world. When it comes to an art form like Indian classical music, this separation is not warranted, even not ideal. When we say Indian classical music is essentially a chamber setting affair, we mean this – that music flows best when audience and performer interact. The intensity of the artist’s effort should be transparent, not hidden behind a veneer of perfection which, it is acknowledged, is unattainable. Our classical music involves internalising a highly nuanced body of knowledge, knowledge of ragas, repertoire, as well as considerable technical and presentation skills. One can imagine the immense amount of pressure that a first or second-timer on stage might reel under. And the anxiety never leaves most of us, how-many-ever concerts one may have performed. The live music making, the improvisation, interaction between artists, all of this makes it a verdant ground for mistakes. Practice and unwavering concentration during the performance alone can carry one across. And even if one does slip, it is all part of the game. It happens to the best. In an earlier era when concerts always happened in intimate settings with knowledgeable listeners, mistakes were acknowledged — immediately and with humility. The audience would know, after all. In Hindustani music, performers touch their ears in an open admission of slipping up when they make a mistake. Today with large auditoria, and largely lay audiences, this culture is no longer relevant. But this does not mean performers can relax about the need to avoid mistakes because ultimately they answer to their art. It is a matter of artistic integrity. This then is the paradox of performance. One must care about avoiding mistakes but, fearing mistakes is not the way of art — which is about abandon, and free play of imagination. Petrification will hardly result in anything interesting and uplifting. A relaxed and focused state of mind, while hard to attain, is necessary for art. But with the possibility of mistakes, how can one relax? It is also true that the more seasoned we get, performers aspire to attain the state when music just flows without the exercise of memory or conscious effort of any sort. It is a mysterious state, the state of creativity and somehow then, mistakes aren’t made. Dr Lakshmi Sreeram is a Carnatic and Hindustani musician. She writes about the artistic process and the experience of art using myth, story, philosophy, and everything in between. Write to her at larasriram14@gmail.com