Irina Kushelevich
“In Europe, we have a habit that we don’t show much emotion. We feel them inside, all of the thoughts are there, but you don’t show them, because it’s not polite to show that to another person,” Irina Kushelevich says. “In dance, we have a chance to open these thoughts and explore them…it’s a proper place where you can show.”
Irina Kushelevich is a part-time Bharatanatyam dancer and part-time Aikido master situated in Lithuania- quite a diverse set of skills for a woman that was raised in the culture of Eastern Europe. She started her dance journey as many other young girls in her region did, immersed in classical ballet for nine years of her childhood.
“I wanted to do it seriously, but there were no opportunities for me, for my shape of body, among other things,” Irina says. “It was a difficult time for our country as well, because Lithuania was gaining their independence and most of the culture and arts were just stopping. I stopped dancing, but my wish to dance was still there.”
Lithuania, at the time, was a part of the Soviet Union, and although it was the first republic to gain independence from the USSR in 1991, the shockwave of sudden change rippled throughout the country, bringing many aspects of culture to a pause. Without the prospect of dance, Irina quenched her thirst for movement through a Japanese martial art that her father practiced, called Aikido.
She studied under the master Pranas Golovach in Lithuania, before travelling to Japan to learn from the descendents of the Aikido founder himself. A very physical art form, Aikido helped Irina develop her strength and self-awareness, which lay the foundation for her eventual Bharatanatyam practice. For this reason, Irina describes herself as a martial artist first and a dancer second.
It wasn’t until Irina was about 20 years old that she began seeking out a new form of expression. She was initially attracted to Asian dance styles, such as those from Japan and Vietnam, until her friend introduced her to the beauty of Indian classical dance. She took a few group lessons in odissi and kuchipudi, but because of its far-reaching vocabulary, deep history and powerful movements, she felt attracted to bharatanatyam above all.
As fate had it, a prominent bharatanatyam teacher by the name of Rajyashree Ramesh was touring through Europe at the time, making one stop in Lithuania. Eagerly, Irina and her dance friends invited Rajyashree to the capital of Vilnius to teach classes and perform her own work. Enthralled by her talent, Irina began learning under Rajyashree shortly after, and has remained as one of her devoted student to this day.
“Rajyashree Ramesh is a dance teacher, but she is also a movement analyst. She studied movement analysis in America, and so she knows how a movement should go, how it begins, and how to make people move in that way,” Irina says. “Many [teachers], they teach just the movement. When you do an adhavu, for example, you just turn your feet…but when Rajyashree came, she turned my feet exactly how they should be, she was twisting my legs and doing all of these things so that I could really feel, in reality, what the movement should be.”
Learning bharatanatyam from an early age in India, Rajyashree Ramesh moved to Berlin, Germany, where she began incorporating aspects of her scientific education and western practices into her choreography. This perspective suited Irina without flaw, and unsurprisingly, she began incorporating aspects of Aikido into her own contemporary bharatanatyam choreography, with full support from her guru.
In a bold move, Irina even meshed movements from Aikido into the untraditional second half of her arangetram, which featured a 30-minute piece centered on the Buddhist themes of positive and negative emotions. Following the months of six-hour-a-day practice sessions with Rajyashree in Bangalore, Irina took the stage at the renowned Chennai Music Academy Mini Hall.
“My Arangetram was my first experience of dance in India I was very excited for the opportunity to do that with live music because you can’t do that in Lithuania, you simply just don’t have musicians,” she says. “First, you feel very frightened because you don’t know how it will be. But then, when you start, you see how the musicians are following you, and you understand that you play the main role and whatever you show, they will follow. You will feel some kind of unification with them as you dance. You get inspired by them and they get inspired by you.”
With esteemed guests of honour Priyadarshini Govind and Savithri Jagannatha Rao in the audience, this experience of dancing in Chennai was drastically different than any moment she had had dancing in Lithuania. In Lithuania, she says, people don’t understand the difficult compositions or highlights of the performance, and therefore, don’t show their praise until the end. That lack of connection can leave the dancer feeling unfulfilled in a sense, and so, as her guru had done before her, Irina began incorporating elements of European culture into her bharatanatyam performances.
Adjusting her art to the audience can be found in the stories she dances, as well as in her accompanying music. When performing Bharatanatyam to Eastern European songs, such as pieces by Tchaikovsky, Irina says, it allows the audience to feel a deeper emotional connection, appeasing the purpose of art.
Following her Arangetram, Rajyashree Ramesh allowed Irina to open a branch of her Berlin-based dance academy in Lithuania, using her understanding of the European audience to teach a new generation of bharatanatyam dancers. With her troupe, Irina has travelled throughout India and Europe performing both classical and contemporary fusion pieces, with the goal of evoking the visceral response that, as a dancer, she has always seeked to achieve.
When passing Bharatanatyam onto a pool of dancers who are typically quite removed from Indian culture, Irina believes it’s important to maintain both patience and the curiosity to discover something new. In mingling the classical repertoire of the past with the contemporary sway of the present, Irina hopes to shape a more diverse future for the realm of art in Lithuania.
Now, teaching both Bharatanatyam and aikido, her days are chock-full of artistic expression, allowing herself to truly dive into the emotions that consume everyday life. This, she believes, is one of the beneficial crossovers of dance and martial arts. “Also, the coordination of the fingers and feet, all together with the rhythm, that’s very beneficial for the brain too. I think- well, I hope, that when I’m old, I will avoid many sicknesses because I was doing these kind of practices. Really I want to continue to dance until I’m dead,” she says with a laugh.
The universe pressed the pause button on Irina’s dance journey for a brief moment, but perhaps for good reason, as it’s exposed her to the expansive possibilities that now embody her practice. “Dance for me, is a kind of personal realization. When you can explore your own thoughts and feelings, you become aware of yourself and that is connected with inner perfection,” she concludes. “I feel that, maybe from some kind of past life, dance has came to me again… I find myself in dance.”
