Transforming prisons through dance

Auroville Today: How did your connection with dance begin?

Alokananda: My first public performance as a solo dancer was in 1955 when I was four years old and I’ve been dancing ever since. My family was involved with dance, music, and poetry, especially on my mother’s side. My mother herself was a music teacher. So, I think it’s in my genes. 

I am trained in Bharatnatyam and Odissi, but in my childhood I was mainly doing free dancing. Later, I learned the different folk dances of India. Additionally, I have done Russian ballet in school and received a scholarship to pursue it at the Calcutta School of Music. And whenever there was someone coming to give a dance workshop from another country, I would participate. So, I have had both formal training and a taste of many different styles of dance. 

I think that all these forms of dance have made a difference to my interpretation of dance. Although I am essentially a classical dancer, and now specialized in Odissi, I have created my own personal style, which I call the neo-classical. It is rooted in classical dance, but I have branched out in my self-expression. I have moved away from the rigidity of the classical dance forms. I have tried to make it a little more fluid and realistic when it comes to the expressional dance, because in classical dance forms, the abhinaya, as we call it, is very stylised. When I was a student, I learned it, but when I executed it, I tried to make it more natural. 

How did you become acquainted with the works of Sri Aurobindo and The Mother? 

It was mainly the influence of my father who had surrendered himself to Mother. Since my early teens, I was growing up with Mother and Sri Aurobindo’s teachings at home and it made a difference to my way of thinking and my values, as well as my spiritual aspiration, which developed very early. And so, as a natural progression, I began interpreting Sri Aurobindo’s works, especially Savitri and Bande Mataram. I have also worked on some of his sonnets. Dance is the way I could express myself about how I saw Mother and Sri Aurobindo.

Did you meet The Mother?

Yes, a couple of times. The first time, I would call it a very sensational experience because I had peculiar feelings when I met her. I was only 17 years old then. I was just weeping and trembling, for no reason. I didn’t realize why, but when I told the people in the Sri Aurobindo Ashram, they said, ‘You know, you don’t have to worry about anything anymore, She has taken responsibility for you.’ So as long as she was physically here, whenever something happened, even if it was trivial, I would just write to her. And she would send her blessings. Even now I can still feel her in spirit. She’s always there, protecting me and guiding me. 

I did not have the opportunity to meet Sri Aurobindo. But I think I felt his presence in Presidency Jail when I went there. I have always felt that it was Mother and Sri Aurobindo who took me there to do their work. 

Tell me more about your work in Presidency Jail.

It wasn’t planned. I was invited as a guest on International Women’s Day in 2007 to the female ward in Presidency Jail. The female prisoners wanted to learn dance, and I agreed. I really wanted to know about their life inside, which hardly any of us know about from the outside. After the workshop, I was taken around to see Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose’s and Sri Aurobindo’s jail cells. That is when I first saw Sri Aurobindo’s cell. Of course, I was interested to know more. 

I saw the male prisoners as well. I asked the man who was Inspector General, ‘Can I also teach the boys?’ He asked, ‘Do you have the courage? Everybody feels scared of the men especially.’ I replied, ‘No. What can I fear that they will do to me, when most are almost the same age as my son?’ So he agreed. 

Today, I feel that I was destined to be there and that it was all arranged by Mother and Sri Aurobindo, because that is where his spiritual journey started. As I keep telling the boys who I teach there, ‘Yes, he was a saint, but he was also made of flesh and blood like you and me. So if he could feel the presence of god here, you can also feel it. You just need to be ready for it and open yourself up. The grace is always there.’

How did you begin to organise this programme?

I started with martial dance and folk dance because I had more male students than female students, and they had never danced before. Once they were doing well, I organized a little performance within the prison walls. It was brilliant. I had some guests who said, ‘Why don’t you present this performance outside the jail?’ I didn’t know if they would be allowed to, but the permission came through. At the end of the first programme that they did in a public auditorium, there was a standing ovation. 

That experience changed them. They never ever thought that anybody would clap for something that they had done. They had been ostracised by  society and despised. People were either angry with them or scared of them. So when they were applauded and feted like artists, it changed them. They felt that if they were being punished for the wrong that they have done, they were also appreciated for something good that they were doing. It was a turning point. 

Can you tell me more about the specific impact that your dance therapy programme has had?

It was based upon dance, of course, but gradually it developed into a bonding of mother and child that helped them to transform. They all call me ‘Ma’ there. Once they are in prison, they miss their families, especially their mothers. I am able to fill that void in a small way. 

I remember one boy who fell ill while rehearsing. It was very hot that day and he had a blackout. I sat on the floor and put his head on my lap. I put water on his forehead and behind his ears, like you would do for anyone else. When he opened his eyes – he had big eyes – he kept looking at me. When I came back after a couple of days, he had written on a piece of paper for me, ‘I don’t remember my mother so much, but now when I shut my eyes and think of her, I see your face.’ I was so moved, because I didn’t feel like I did much. But it had made a difference. 

Later they told me, ‘Nobody touches us, nobody holds us.’ But I do. Sometimes I give them hugs, sometimes even raps on the back when they are naughty. They don’t mind because that is the kind of relationship we have now.

These little things have made a difference to their way of thinking. They are always trying to prove that they are not all bad, that they can also do good. Situations can make you do things that you wouldn’t have dreamed of doing. There are numerous cases, and I deal with a lot of lifers, those who have been sentenced to life in prison, usually for murder. But they have so much repentance now. 

So while people call it dance therapy, I call it love therapy – I use dance as a medium, that’s all. The rhythm they have lost in life comes back through dance and music. They start feeling good. What I say is that when you feel good, you do good. When you are dancing or singing, you can never be sad. Even if it’s a sad song, it becomes a catharsis.  Over one hundred of my students in jail have been released so far. All of them have gone back to a normal life, doing whatever they are capable of. 

Though I didn’t realise it when I first began, Mother has given me this work to do. 

I would never have thought I would continue for 13 years – 

I came to do a workshop, but it has become a life project. 

What future do you see for the programme elsewhere?

On a trip to the United States, I was invited to hold a two-hour workshop in one of the prisons there. I was very excited that, despite being a foreigner, I was allowed to enter a prison. They knew me, because they had seen the documentary about my work, ‘Love Therapy in My Second Home’, so they knew that prisoners called me ‘Ma’ in India. 

When I completed the workshop, one of the convicts came to me and said, ‘You know, Mama Roy, something behind the head felt free. I don’t know what it was, but it felt good and free.’ That’s what rhythm and music does. Already they do a bit of theatre in the prison, but after my workshop they have been keen to introduce dance too. I remember that a psychiatrist who was sitting there said, ‘You know, I could see the difference. I could make out from their body language how involved they were. And how deeply they were feeling something within. So I think we should try it here.’ 

That is what I want to do, to create a template so that others can start programmes in other places as well. To make people feel good and come back to themselves. 

Facilitating these dance workshops has also taught me to love unconditionally, to be non-judgmental, and to forgive. I have been purified in the prison. As described in Tales of Prison Life by Sri Aurobindo, it is an ashram for me as well. It has changed me from within. I think it has helped me to rise above all the trifles in life.