Gina Lalli: Tribute to my Teachers and Friends

SHREE NITYANANDA --While he lived in the body he enlightened many and he continues to do so from his abode in the spiritual world.

The town of Ganeshpuri sprang up around the cave where he lived.
It is a magical place to visit .

SHREE MUKTANANDA -- My true guru and the principal disciple of Shree Nityananda. He once said, “You will know your true guru as the one who can answer your question completely.” However complex and bewildering my life seemed, he would clear it up in one sentence. He lived in the ashram on a hill near Ganeshpuri and came to the United States and established several centers. He was an adept of Kashmir Shaivism.

RUDI, given the name RUDRANANDA by Swami Muktananda -- Ah, Rudi, whose name means ‘The Bliss of the God of the Storm Clouds” -- how dramatic, how powerful the experience as his student in New York.
He taught me to be serious and meditate as though my life depended on it. He taught by the open-eye method of transmission of spiritual energy from teacher to student, which is more known in Tibetan yoga, and I took to it like an old Tibetan. I was very happy to dance for him and his students in his studio in New York and ashram in Big Indian and he made me a gift of a magnificent bronze Shiva dancing. He introduced me to Muktananda so that my time in India was divided between the dance school in New Delhi and the ashram in Ganeshpuri, a strenuous but marvelous journey.

HILDA CHARLTON -- A disciple of Nityananda, she taught a meditation of soaring imagination that revealed to me my connection to Nityananda. What a beautiful soul!

WILLEM NYLAND -- A direct disciple of Gurdjieff, whom I studied with for two years in New York and received the benefit of the best of Gurdjieff’s Ideas, especially that if you decide that a task is a Sacred Task then you rise to your finest expression of that task.

DRID WILLIAMS -- Drid rescued me from serious knee injury, the result of incorrect teaching in a ballet class in New York, with her deep understanding and mastery of Structural Reintegration, which she called Neuro-Muscular Re-education. After nine years of study with Drid, learning tension reduction in the body and then realigning the body according to the correct lines of force. (Refer to “The Thinking Body” by Mabel Ellworth Todd, an excellent beginning reference; also a more advanced text, “Structural Reintegration” by Lulu Schweigard.) I was able to perform the exacting forms of Bharata Natyam without injury or undue tension and suffering in the body. My body became more fluid and able to adapt to the forms. Thus I was able to focus more on the powerful outpouring of the higher teachings expressed through the body and the face.

ETIENNE DECROUX -- The mime master who taught Marcel Marceau and Jean-Louis Barrault, who created a new classical form within his lifetime, the corporeal mime. I was blessed to be his student in New York for two years between two trips to India. His mime taught a way of analyzing any movement in nature or anything else that moves, then finding a way of translating it into bodily movement. I was able to rethink through all the movements of Indian dance and analyze how to be more precise in aligning my body to the archetypal forms of both Bharata Natyam and Kathak.

THOMAS LEABHART-- A student of Etienne Decroux who brought the corporeal mime to full flower in his work and his teachings. He invited me to teach Bharata Natyam as part of his summer mime workshops so I was able to further my mime study by taking his classes.
He furthered my understanding of the principles of mime and inspired me to create a performance piece, which I found to be a delightful experience.. He was and remains an inspiration of true artistry and friendship,

PANDANALLUR CHOKKALINGAM PILLAI -- A great master of the rigorous Pandanallur school of Bharata Natyamwho taught classes in Madras at dawn and dusk in between the terrible midday heat, I learned an entire three-hour suite and performed it to his satisfaction. One of the major accomplishments of my life.

SHREE SWARNA SARASWATI -- She instructed me in the subtleties of abhinaya, the art of the devotional and heroic dance-songs (padams) of Bharata Natyam. She also taught me a second dance suite. She was loving and generous, promised to teach me every beautiful dance I saw her students perform and longed to know and kept her promise.

PANDIT VIKRAM SINGH -- My first Lucknow Kathak teacher, a disciple of Aachchan Maharaj, who was considered the greatest Kathak dancer of Lucknow. Vikram had retired from dance at the passing of his master but was brought out of retirement by Ali Akbar Khan, the great sarod player, who insisted that Vikram teach me. My relationship with him was filled with drama and emotion and breathtaking art. When he occasionally performed he was a vision of beauty, never to be forgotten.

BIRJU MAHARAJ -- The greatest artist of the Lucknow Kathak dance today. He manages to be innovative yet ever true to the tradition, not a small feat. His own performances are unforgettable, his teaching exact, with attention to the smallest subtlety of every finger and glance of the eye. He moves on a plane of beauty one can only aspire to inhabit. He taught me generously for a year and a half in New Delhi. At my debut in Calcutta I prayed that I would would honor his teaching and that my movements would reflect that I had learned well.

Gina Lalli and Birju Maharaj

ALI AKBAR KHAN -- the master of the sarod and a great friend to me. I would never have studied Kathak or known the endless beauty of the Lucknow style had he not insisted that I “take a few lessons” with Vikram Singh before leaving Bombay to study Bharata Natyam in Madras. The meeting with Vikram Singh was a revelation and led to many years of study with him.

SHREE KALLIANPURKAR -- A teacher of the Jaipur school of Kathak who helped me understand the deep devotional meaning of the dance songs of Kathak, the tumris. He was a great friend to me in the lonely but culturally splendid city of Lucknow.

NAGESWARA RAO -- He taught me to play the veena, the noble classical stringed instrument of South Indian music. So wonderful were the lessons and the exquisite ragas of Carnatic music I was tempted to remain in the world of music. Nageswara traveled and played in many countries, then established a school in Paris.

PURUSHOTTAM DAS-- At the Kathak Kendra school in New Delhi --
He taught me to play the pacawaj, the court drum of old Lucknow. With a thundering sound, requiring strong arm muscles, I was caught up in the grandeur of this instrument and he urged me to continue and be “the only lady pacawaj player in India.” I had to make a new commitment to the dance but it was not an easy decision, so great was his teaching.