An Interior Script of Dance
Raj Shahani makes interiority an inspiration to sculpt a massive body of work in clay, ceramic and bronze, interiority here is translated in abstraction through a figurative vocabulary.  Shahani attempts to put to pause movement that possess great vitality and speed, even though celebrated for its delicate pace. Sculpting ballerinas is a vocation present in art history since the times of the Renaissance.  Ballet or to dance in latin is a classical visual form that developed from the patronage of families such as the Medicis in renaissance Italy that created its own complex vocabulary. This vocabulary consecrated together is called in French Ballet.  We as viewers consume only the visual constant of the dance form and are unable to decipher its terminologies, its stories and most importantly its rigour, that sweats the muscles of the dancer and takes constant practice, determination and patience to master.  Shahani became a sculptor reflecting these qualities essential to the artist.

His debut show at the Jehangir Art Gallery displays 25 works in ceramic and bronze that illustrate dancers in solo and duet presentations where as a sculptor he captures pace in a pause for admiration.  The vocabulary of ballet produces itself out as alphabets in the sculpture.  Shahani holds a personal interest in opera and music and has been audience to many choreographies on numerous occasions.  But his ability to capture the movements of a dancer’s limbs announces a gaze and memory that is commendable.  This is his debut exhibition and the works do not display the naivety of a Sunday painter.  But the quest of an artist who taught himself a technique in moulding clay through industrious hours at the Artist’s League in New York. He was out to capture a subject and it evolved to being the dancers.

The dancers are beautiful, muscular and dramatic in their poise.  Shahani more importantly illustrates time, time often is used to discuss speed and movement such as in races and competitive sports.  Here Shahani with great ease depicts something without it needing numerisation or a clock, we see it in its facet of the visual.  It would be convenient to compare Shahani to Degas but also unfair to Shahani’s vision.  Degas was keen to paint an element of society at the end of the 19th century, it gave him enough space to caricature wealth and tradition.  Shahani is not commenting on society, his quest arrives from the interior, one of self-discovery and an attempt at art. An attempt he successfully accomplishes.

He does not depict the ballerinas or dancers as elements to gather attention on the schisms either as JR did with the New York City Ballet, rather he depicts the dancers in a form that captures their human form in existence.  The Triumph of human ability at dance, the fact that we created such thought out pleasure, that is complex and demanding even in its stealth.  The triumph here is of the human existence, Shahani master’s technique and choreographs aesthetics that mirror his mind through a common popular subject.  It is here that we accord him the ‘chapeau’.

The script of ballet is read with ease from Cuba to New York , from Paris to Saint Petersburg, and from Bombay until Tokyo, even though based on a complex terminology, the viewer does not have to be educated in its functions to be able to appreciate,  the duality serves, the form, its artists and its audience.  Shahani’s elements in sculpture demonstrate the continuous need for humans in the modern world to see reflections of their form, achievements and existence in art.  Simple acts that sing the achievements of our civilization that is now lost under a smog of strife, unhappiness and our acts of self-destruction.  A man who leaves a career in the corporate after having a successful run enquires about his soul.  Love comes in the form of opera and he finds himself in sculpture.

Art & Soul

1.  The Circle in its Path

In dance circular forms have been enacted as forms of outlining the human body,  but spiritually as we know it can now be described as the chakra.  The outer equilibrium of the human body that decided one’s emotional , physical and intellectual state.

2.  The Andronomous
In eastern spirituality specially in India partnerships in love come together form an androgynous figure of half man and half woman called the ardhanariswara.  Marriage or commitment is consecrated on this principle where there is a fusion of two distinct personalities choreographing the dance of life. Equity and common pace is essential in ballet discipline spiced by a committed chemistry, the two dancers when paused at this moment embody a very complex human condition called love.

3.  The Creation of Adam
The only one forgotten in the creation of Adam , is the Goddess herself.  Michelangelo’s fresco on the Sistine Chapel ceiling has God’s finger reaching out touch that of Adam’s who is reclined on earth.  Here as if suspended in the elixir of dance the dances firmly hold their fists together,  someday we shall release that there was equity in conception of human life.

4.  The Silver Oak ‘s flurry .
Standing tall in triumph the ballerina embodies the Silver Oak tree in full flurry , its silver hued greens dancing in flurry against the winds of a thunderstorm.  Dance embodies our wish and strife to counter the negative , its not the bull that represents vitality , if you live in this world your liberty is scripted in this sculpture.

5.  The Natraja
The two dancers gather in an intertwining of limbs at a moment where the conception of the alphabet begins.  A script is born.  Shiva before becoming Ardanareswara dances as Nataraja or the ruler of dance in a conversation with his consort Parvati in passion, anger and love , with each steps he creates the various scripts of languages,  forms of dance and techniques of art forms.  Raj Shahani’s ability at the conception of sculpting here reveals his Indian roots.  When one admires the dancing Nataraja sculpture in the Meenakshi temple in Madurai one is amazing at the ability of carving the flying limbs in black granite.  In his debut exhibition Shahani enacts the role of the classical sculptor India has its heritage inscribed by.

6.  A Fine Balance
Balance is essential to dance as it is essential to sculpture.  Gravity was finally discovered by Albert Einstein but artists have grappled with earth forces to envelop us in its love , but we have tiptoed our away in the creation of beauty.

7.  The Tennis Ballerina
Tennis has always been associated with ballet for its rigour, grace and use of human strength.  You almost imagine her clasping a wooden racket or imitating the poise of Roger Federer.  Shahani’s elements at depicting our muscles in duets is sportive and reflective of a common future.

8.  Dove
Alight,  light,  crips and in flight .  The dove represents any armistice, the end of power and the realm of peace. Picasso drew it for the United Nations,  dancers embody flight in refusal of Einstein  and in ode to the freedom of the human mind.

9.  Tinker Bell
The pose of tinker bell , popular culture like sculpture found its fairies in the movements of ballerinas.  Here and forever.

10. Arc De Triomphe
Almost Christ like he gathers her in flight , a burden he carries for us the viewers ,  her flight his flight , together they arch towards triumph.

11.   Los Flamingos
With her leg arched backwards,  she plums up her beauty in grace traveling across seas like the sculpture to please the seas.

12.  Circular Mandala
It could be the Bindu, but the bindu chartered by the human body , gather their bodies together erupting in a peak.

13.  Body Architecture.
The ribs and knees protrude in the contours of  the body cage as if liberating ones soul through erotica.

14.  Dreams that gather in our Eyes.
Dance like most artworks is a dream , a dream that emerges through the chemistry of two dancers much like relationships that glow.

15.  The Signature Alphabet
Here we script,  we dance and we choreography a form , we call it an alphabet, you can read it through its beauty.

16.  The Forward March of Love!
We combine , we twist , we jump , we spring up , we love , we make love , and we dance our lives out.  We conquer our worlds together.

17.  The Polymelia Circle
We have many hands,  many feet but one soul, we roll like a circle , we are the chakra,  we are you conscience.  We are together , we spell chemistry with our action , we are choreography  in moves,  we are the five elements,  we are beauty.

18.La Danse de la  Victiore
She forms a victory push angles his hands as he holds her firm in balance, both moving forward into the momentum of the future.  A moment, a victory, an alliance.

19.The Victory Stretch
She leaps forwards stretching from his feet and hands they move forward and the stretch of flesh is a harp of victory humming along in dance through sculpture

20.Panther Prowl
Stretches back to pounce forward, animal speed, backward march, why dance choreograph the spirit of beasts and Raj Shahani sculpts into beauty as humans prowl their muscles to a form.

21.Vetruvian Balance
Leonardo Da Vinci in his polymathic brilliance drew the Vetruvian man as a mathematical and artistic description of the proportions of men in sculpture and drawing.  A wonder in mathematical excellence at discussing the perspective, it forgot the woman, Raj Shahani changes those perception in his sculpture to provide vetruvian balance of equality.

22.Olympic Tango
She stretches out of his arms, choreographing a chemistry, creating an alphabet and a movement that muscles out the beauty of dance cast in sculpture , its finesse somewhere caught on photography by Raj Shahani

23.Aspiration
Alight,  light,  crips and in flight, the end of power and the realm of peace.  Picasso drew it for the United Nations, dancers embody flight in refusal of Einstein and in ode to the freedom of the human mind.

24.Connection
With her leg arched backwards, she plums up her beauty in grace traveling across seas like the sculpture to please the seas.