Man Power : Barclay Program Will Showcase ‘Male Force’ of Classic, Modern Indian Dance

Ever since visiting Bombay as a high-school exchange student, New York choreographer Jonathan Hollander has been enthralled with Indian music and dance.

Their influence can be felt in his modern work “Testimony,” which will be presented Sunday at the Irvine Barclay Theatre by two members of Hollander’s 20-year-old Battery Dance Company and five Classical Indian dancers accompanied by Indian musicians.

While pairing vastly different idioms, the touring production, sponsored by Irvine’s Arpana Foundation, has a unifying element: All its performers are male.

“There’s no intermission,” Hollander said recently. “We segue from one segment to another without long breaks [to send] a message that these are all men--whether they’re from north India, south India or New York--who are dedicated to dance.”

The two-hour program is titled “Purush: Expressions of Man” after the Sanskrit word meaning “male force.” It will showcase three generations of Indian dancers, including C.V. Chandrashekar, who has been dancing for half a century and performed at the Barclay two years ago.

For much of this century, dance in India, as in the United States, has been dominated by women. Additionally, it’s become more difficult it modern times for Indian men to pursue careers as performers, said Hollander, who studied dance as a UC Irvine undergrad. He also spent three months in India in 1992 lecturing about American dance on a Fulbright scholarship and has produced five Indian dance programs in the United States.

As India’s rigid caste system was relaxed with modernization, “women took over” many dance forms that had been dominated by men for hundreds of years, he said during a phone interview from his troupe’s headquarters. Such forms include Kuchipudi and Kathakali, which will be executed Sunday with Bharata Natyam and Kathak.

Furthermore, “India has the fastest-growing middle class of any country in the world,” which pumps up pressure to achieve material wealth, Hollander said. Pursuing dance, a notoriously low-paying profession, therefore, “goes against the grain of what society is saying for a man to do.

“Most Indian men are married and have families, and it’s amazing to me that they do transcend the pressures and stresses of their life in order to dedicate themselves to something so clearly a spiritual and artistic pursuit.”

Hollander, 44, knows those pressures. With the birth of his second child 16 months ago, he contemplated switching to a more lucrative, secure vocation. A period of soul-searching, however, reaffirmed his commitment and resulted in “Testimony,” which he calls “a testimony of my love and devotion to dance.”

“I looked at my older daughter and thought, ‘Who is Isabelle--the daughter of a stockbroker or the daughter of two dancers?’ My answer was to keep dancing. She may not have a trust fund and go to all the finest private schools, but she can . . . experience musicians and dancers and the color of costumes and the beauty and wealth of artistry.”

The artistry of each classical dance form on Sunday’s program differs widely.

Bharata Natyam and Kuchipudi, both from south India, are similar “in terms of physical stance and vocabulary,” Hollander said, “but Kuchipudi is more rounded, softened and yet more flamboyant than the austere, geometric Bharata Natyam.” Kathakali, from the southwest, is a dance-drama form; Kathak, from the north, uses virtuosic, “incredibly fast, multiple spins and footwork.”

Why place Indian and American dance on the same bill?

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Besides the psychic bond he feels with male Indian dancers, Hollander said he wanted to show Indians here and in their own country (where he has presented “Purush”) that “their culture is affecting people outside of India,” namely himself.

He cites as major influences Merce Cunningham and the late Eugene Loring, with whom he studied in New York and at UC Irvine, respectively. He also briefly performed with Twyla Tharp’s troupe.

But the complex “rhythmic footwork” of Indian dance has seeped into his choreography, he said, along with “visual images that come from Shiva Nataraj, the Indian male god of dance” depicted in sculptural form with one bent leg raised and resting on the other and both arms overhead in a “V.”

There have been musical influences as well. “Testimony” is danced to an original score by Badal Roy, an Indo-American tabla player who melds jazz with classical Indian rhythms.

Hollander realizes that he opens himself up for criticism by placing his own work on the current program.

But “the piece has been very well received,” he said, “and it doesn’t dominate; in fact it throws the other work into a very strong context. Plus, it’s a relief for American audiences to see something familiar.”

* “Purush: Expressions of Man” will be performed Sunday at 6 p.m. at Irvine Barclay Theatre, 4242 Campus Drive, Irvine. $12 to $20. (714) 854-4646.