Rainbows from the clouds

What is performance?How do you bring East and West into dialogue with your art? We asked Ratnabali Kant, one of the pioneers of performance art in India

«If you can’t shape your life the way you want, at least try as hard as you can»: a woman repeats these words to the people listening to her, next to a pyramid of terracotta pots, in the no parking area of the Kamani auditorium, one of the most prestigious in Delhi. On 28th March 1996, Ratnabali Kant had ten years of experimentation behind her: Death of Desire was her Ritual Installation Performance. Today, it is considered one of the pioneers of performance art in India. We contacted her.

What does the word performance mean to you?

Performance is an act of presenting something using body gesture/voice.
Performance art is an art form combined with visual art or a piece where the artist uses heir body to express their thoughts/ideas.

In what sense, as you stated, ‘Performance art is the art of resistance and is constructive in its nature’?

Yes, for me it’s the art of resistance and protest art and visually and conceptually constructive too because I construct installation too with the performance.

What prompted you to perform your first performance art work, Rainbow of Desire?

While I was involved with my research work in Greece, I was introduced to many famous Greek artists. One of them was a very famous Greek sculptor, Mrs. Natalia Melas, who was the granddaughter of the historic national figure, Pavlos Melas¹.

On weekends she used to invite senior artists to her studio: in one such occasion, in September 1985, I got an opportunity to perform my first Performance Art, that I named Body Art Performance,  Rainbow of Desire. I painted my face and my body like rainbow which symbolized joy and hope against darkness and tribulations.

From my training as a Kathakali² dancer (an Indian classical dance form from Kerala), I took the idea of make-up according to moods and characters. Performers colour their faces and bodies in order to transform themselves.

This opportunity was to me a step ahead towards achievement/ fulfilling my desire to become an artist, that’s why I painted my face like rainbow, symbolizing victory/joy.

When you received the message to go back to India, did you know you would be the first to ‘synthesis performance and installation’?

Professor Somnath Hore³, my teacher and famed artist, wrote to me: “Come back to India and introduce this form of art among young students here”.

At that time I didn’t think that Installation Performance would be the name under which I would perform and develop an art form. When I started Body art Performance (1985), performance art was not so popular in the West. My intention was to develop it in Indian context.

Do you agree with the Western view that sees India as ‘lagging behind’ the beginning of performance art compared to the West?

If you look at it grossly or with a prejudiced mind then maybe so. Most artists westernize themselves to become global artists, but this is not true.

A parallel line can also be created by connecting with one’s own tradition and environment.

In our country, there is traditionally a kind of performance practice in many places, from ritual to folk art practice. And I have taken references from all of them, so that we can reach our own audience/ viewers, and our own identity is reflected in our creative work.

In a recent interview, you said: ‘Many people think revival means going backwards, but in reality, many new paths are being discovered’. Can you elaborate on that?

I think I have explained this somewhere. A lot of things have to be said if I have to said all in detail. Here I am giving an example. It was a ritual like ‘Dand’ (prostration) performed by the devotees near Shiva temple, Vaishno temple, Tirupati, Chhat Puja etc.

I had seen devotees taking a dip in the tank at Khajuraho on the occasion of ‘Maha Shivratri’ and then prostrating themselves on the stony path, leaving their wet imprints on the terrain, and chanting their desire for which they were performing this penance.  

This was a very moving vision which could be captured for a performance in a new perspective, where the artist body, the floor and the viewers are activating at the same time.

You said that you are inspired by the traditional concept of Indian aesthetics in relation to the interrelation between the arts. Could you please explain this?

Indian art is characterized by a strong sense of design, and symbols. As example of interrelationship: a)truth, auspiciousness, beauty. b) A contemplative abstraction that suggests the intricacies of human feelings. c) Melange or combination of Poetry, Music and Architecture. d) The depiction of ceremonies, rituals. All these are reflects on my creative art work.

Desire is a theme that returns in your work: after Rainbow of Desire, Death of Desire…

About Rainbow of Desire I said before. In Death of Desire I explored the fear to enter in this art form, that could be a disaster in my art career. Putting ‘ghara’ terracotta/ earthenware pots is praying for fulfillment, breaking them is fear of failure, that compared as death.

In the Vhs video digitised online, you can see a little girl helping you in the performance Death of Desire: How come?

The participating child is the authentic artist of spontaneous vision and imagination. Participation of a child artist to draw body line like child art is a very meaning full act. She was not performing as a helper.

In 1991, at the India International Centre in Delhi, you performed Facing Nightmare Alone for the first time in India, which you described as a performing sculpture: in what sense?

In 1986 I made and exhibited a large size sculpture in black fibreglass and vermilion red ten meters long cloth, under the title Facing Nightmare Alone. The sculpture was highly praised by all art critics art lovers, and common people.

So when I got a chance to do a performance in 1991, I performed this sculpture long with the great Indian epic legend, so that Indian viewers could easily accept and enjoy it. This sculpture is still in very good condition and well preserved and housed in a very prestigious place.

Also a fragment within the performance I Feel life to be Green’has this name. Can you describe the different fragments?

One can say that I Feel Life to be Green is a theatrical Performance, but I named it Art Performance, because it was a long composition of ten sequences and stands in a class of its own. It involved the use of paintings, sculptures, scrolls, banners, slide projection, innovative of costumes and included dance, theatre, music, chanting, recitation, slogans, dialogues, action and different styles of choreography.

The idea was constructed in 1993 and it was performed on the stage in July 1994, at Ranchi, at Max Mueller Bhavan, Kolkata, in Santiniketan and then in September 1995 at Sri Ram Centre for Performing Arts in Delhi. In December 1996 it was telecast on DD-III by CPC Doordarshan.

This performance involved the training of tribal youths at Chota Nagpur in dance and theatre, and this occasioned the first performance at Ranchi. There was depiction of tribal and urban life and contemporary adaptation of myth and legend.

Many sequences commented the contemporary anguish of the home and the world: the growing imbroglio of man’s betrayal of man, the chilling emergence of organised violence, the humiliation and victimization of women, the hollow mechanized modern life, defeated, dejected and mournful humanity, slavery and exploitation.

The different ten sequences were presented as a composite performance, which included the dynamics of body language associated with monumentality of living sculptures and some works of painting.

The varieties of interaction between the performing and visual arts for me reflects the bewildering complexity of human relations now increasingly marked by violence and betrayal.

The underlying theme, which unified it, was the hope of a green life at the end of today’s strife, suffering, exploitation and violence.

So I named the entire performance I feel Life to be Green: life should be green, no agony, no violence.

Your works are always in a multimedia format: what relationship have you had and still have with technology?

Mixing media comes to me quite spontaneously, and I find joy in this approach. That’s because I got training and education in various art forms: painting, sculpture, craft, dance theatre, literature etc.

What have been the three best moments and three worst ones in your five-decade career?

I will start with the best three: firstly, I got the opportunity to stay in Greece and meet intellectual and famed personalities of that country, through the Greek government scholarship.

Secondly, I was able to create a new art by taking my body from the classical art form to the contemporary art form. And by going to all the art faculties and demonstrating my performance, I was able to bring it into a major art practice and thus create an art movement in India.

Thirdly, at the same time, my sculptures were receiving a lot of appreciation and were placed in various important collections.

While the worst three are: after all my efforts were successful, I came to know that from different collections many of my sculptures were destroyed by submerging in water, some burnt to ashes, some disappeared from the outdoor collection.

Another mental shock was that by writing wrong information, so misusing their power, some historians were removing my existence from this world. I was overwhelmed with despair.

Thirdly there are many but minor things, from which I am able to overcome: no one could take away my education, my experience, my knowledge.

And the three places you are most fond of?

Actually I have love and attachment for four places: the first one is Kolkata (Calcutta), where I was brought-up by my family and I did my schooling.  The second is Santiniketan, where I spent five years for my bachelor degree, learnt so many things, and was brought-up from teenage to womanhood.

The third one is M.S. University, Baroda, where I took another step forward towards becoming an Artist. The fourth one is my stay in Greece, for my doctoral research, that is my dreamland.

In 2005, in The last performance, in memory of the director Safdar Hahsmi, you invited the public to ‘Come, see the blood along the streets’, symbolically choosing to roll your own body-medium on the street with blood paint… What is the message you wanted to send?

Safdar Hahsmi was a theatre director, he was playing a street theatre Halla Bol (Raise Your Voice) which was against Government and that is why he was killed on the spot. So that was his last performance. The main point of my The Last Performance is supporting the freedom of expression: ‘If you kill one talent, hundred will born from four sides’.

The Last Performance was performed in 2005, in New Delhi, completing 20 years of my exploration of this art form. Like Safdar Hashmi and many other creative persons who had worked for the people and given joy to the millions, yet suffered heavily for their daring expression of their creative genius, I must mention here, also I had to struggle a lot in this journey.

Fury and brute force, and orgies of violence and bloodshed cannot wash away any Artist’s creative expression, nor muzzle his or her daring, creative voice.

Out of the looming black clouds will emerge everywhere and everyday a hundred rainbows, mirroring the glint of the artist’s creative genius.

I uttered a few memorable lines from Pablo Neruda’s poetry during the performance. And I named it The Last Performance because I pioneered Performance Art in India, and by that time many started doing performances: my intention was to introduce and promote the performance art India and I achieved the goal successfully. So I thought I should stop performing publicly for some times.

You are still sculpting today: does the transition from predominantly moving performance to predominantly static sculpture have any particular significance?

I am mainly a sculptor, I did my graduation and masters in sculpture. Respectively, in Visva Bharati University of Santiniketan, West Bengal, India and in Maharaja Sayaji Rao University, Baroda, India. I love to sculpt with my hands.

Would you resume, perhaps experimenting with digital media such as avatars or augmented reality, any of your performances? And, if so, which one?

I don’t like working in digital media, I feel a limitation in this technique. I enjoy doing live performance.

If a girl today in 2024 wanted to pursue an artistic career, what advice would you give her?

One thing I would like to say not only girl or young students but to all people: it is not just the goals they can achieve.

Most people become smaller when they have ambitions that they cannot reach. If they keep their eyes and mind open, if they try to see things sensibly and if they want to do something themselves, I think that’s the best thing they can do.

No one wants to be like anyone else. They should know how to use what they have, their inner source, and when time and environment enter to their creation, they become contemporary artists.

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1. Pavlos Melas was a military officer, sent in 1904 to support the liberation of Macedonia from the Ottoman Empire. The eponymous municipality on the outskirts of Thessaloniki in central Macedonia is dedicated to him. ↩︎
2. Kathakali is a form of dance theatre originating in the Kerala region of southern India.It combines literature, music, painting, theatre and dance.   ↩︎
3. Somnath Hore (1921-2006), Indian sculptor and printmaker, founder of the Delhi Polytechnic’s printmaking department in 1958.He was a multifaceted artist who explored human suffering through sketches, prints and sculptures.His works helped focus attention on the effects of World War II and the 1943 famine in Bengal. ↩︎