Science and Dance at the 6th Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan and Expo, Ahmedabad

Science and Dance at the 6th Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan and Expo, Ahmedabad 

As the narrator (Sutradhar) for the 6th Bharatiya Vigyan Sammelan and Expo held in Ahmedabad in Dec 2023, I helped weave the dance that students of Nritya Kala Kendra did, with science. In this video, I introduce myself, the impetus for the work I do at the intersection of neuroscience and Bharatanatyam, the rationale for looking at the convergence of the arts and the sciences, and introduce the first piece the students performed, an ode to Lord Shiva. The transcript can be found under the video and in the close captions in the video. 

Transcript:
​Namaste! My name is Dr Sloka Iyengar, and it is such a pleasure to welcome you all from New York City. I have the distinct pleasure of being the Sutradhar for today's show. I grew up in Ahmedabad and after my undergraduate work in Pharmacy I helped set up the first humane spay-neuter shelter for stray dogs in Ahmedabad. And in this role where I was working with hundreds of dogs every single day; working with pigeons and snakes and monkeys I really started observing keenly, animals and it is through animal behavior that led me to my interest in neuroscience I came to the US to pursue my doctoral work in neuroscience where I was looking at epilepsy and seizure disorders, and my question or my hypothesis was trying to address synaptic plasticity, which is a process by which synapses or the neurons in our brains change with experience. And my project entailed looking at how seizures and epilepsy impacted synaptic plasticity. After my PhD I came to New York where I am now for my postdoctoral work while I was where I was also looking at epilepsy and seizure disorders.

 had a break of several years in dance. I started learning dance when I was very young with Smt. Maheshwari Nagarajan and Smt Vanitha Jayan and after a break of several years when I came to New York I had the fortune (the good fortune) of starting to dance again.

And as a practitioner of both science and dance, there were so many points of convergences between very specifically neuroscience and Bharatanatyam, but even broadly between the arts and the sciences that were really apparent to me. And in order to articulate these points of convergences, these intersections between these two seemingly disparate fields I started an online production I curate this production called Vichaar. The goals of Vichaar as I mentioned are to articulate what are the points of convergences between neuroscience and Bharatanatyam, and really thinking even more broadly about the impact of arts and sciences in the world around us. And my basic or my overarching guide of a question is to is to see if Bharatanatyam can really help us address how the brain works.

So, as the Sutradhar for today, I will be announcing or introducing the items that students of Nritya Kala Kendra are going to perform. The first item is an ode to Lord Shiva. As we know Lord Shiva in his form as Nataraja is the cosmic dancer. He is the god of Dance.

And you know thinking about why even look at this intersection, why should we look at the intersection of Bharatanatyam and neuroscience and arts and the sciences, and I think there's many reasons to do so.

• One, as scientists yourselves, you will know that science is an inherently creative field. So while we don't typically think of scientists as creative people, we know that science as scientists we are innovating we are creating almost every single day. Both these disciplines - Bharatanatyam and neuroscience - really entail years and years of study of work after which we have the tools through which we can (either in in science) address new hypotheses, ask questions about the world around us about our ourselves, about how our brains and our minds work; (and in Bharatanatyam), very systematic and systematized toolkit gives us this the tools to really innovate to think to come up with new pieces to tell new stories with this vocabulary that we have been given.
• The second reason why I think it's important to look at this convergence is that the impact of science and the arts are really all around us while the impacts of technology. The way I'm talking to you from really thousands of kilometers away is an aspect of technology these days that we cannot discount. Movement and art are really all also all around us whether it is the rustling of leaves in the wind whether it is the the waves of the ocean all; all things around us. Movement is inherent to life; whether it's movement outside of us or movement within our cells within our neurons within our cardiac cells. So movement is dance, and that's another reason to look at this intersection.
• And the third and I think a very important reason again to look at this intersection between Bharatanatyam and neuroscience is that the arts and the sciences have the ability to bring people together. While many disciplines, many ways of thinking about the world are inherently divisive, the arts and the sciences can really bring people together, give a common vocabulary to understand what's happening around us. And my feeling is that the arts and the sciences are really two different ways of looking at reality. As scientists, we try to be objective we have experiments we come up with data and we look at the world from an objective (or as objective as possible) way, whereas the arts (I think) is a very personal and an individual sense of reality around us.

So, I hope this gives us a little bit of an introduction as to why why even think of this intersection and convergence. As I mentioned, the first piece that our amazing students of Nritya Kala Kendra are going to be presenting is an ode to Lord Shiva. Lord Shiva in his form of Nataraja is the cosmic dancer and our students will be presenting the Ananda Tandavam, and really requesting Lord Shiva to bless his disciples. This song has been sung by Sri Jayan Nair, its melody or ragam is Revathi, and the talam (rhythm) is Chaturashra Ekam. I hope hope you enjoy this piece.