Anita Ratnam

My feet have stomped on many a stage and historic sites over the last forty-five years. I have performed in twenty-seven countries for such diverse audiences as university students, feminists, school kids, opera buffs, chic Europeans, trendy desis and beer drinking Americans by the riverbanks in the summer. But nowhere has my heart and spirit been more moved than in Santiago, Chile. I was an invited delegate to the annual International Forum for Theatre Research (IFTR). It was a brisk winter in July. I could see the snow-capped Andes as the plane landed on the narrow strip of land, one of South America&rsquos most progressive economies. The evening before my performance based on religion and transcendence, we were taken to the newly opened Museum of Memories, created with international donations so Chileans would not forget the seventeen years of horror and brutality under the dictator Pinochet. It was a time of horror. Artistes, poets, singers, writers and creative people were rounded up and mutilated &mdash hands chopped, tongues cut out and feet hammered to pulp. The tour was shattering for me. Our tour guides were the survivors of that period and their voices were even-toned as they walked us past the torture instruments and video feeds of the brutality. Our tour ended with thirty of us being shut into a small cylindrical chamber to simulate what it would have felt like to be imprisoned. The room was pitch-black. We collectively held our breaths. The sixty seconds of captivity felt like an hour.

I was sleepless that night. I was performing about beauty, faith and transcendence &mdash qualities that cannot be easily described in words &mdash and my mind was invaded by the horrors of what I had seen and heard. When I stepped onto the stage, I was held in total darkness for a single moment, a moment before the lights came on and before I began the dance. I was gripped with terror. The darkness around me was also inside of me. And then the music began, the lights grew softly and my muscles moved in autopilot, conditioned by years of training. My mind wandered into another space, disconnected from where I was. I still don&rsquot know how I completed that thirty-minute show. I do not remember it ending. I have no recollection of the standing ovation or the crowds gathered in the greenroom afterwards.

It was only when someone spilled a glass of red wine on my blue silk sari that I was jolted back to reality. And that will remain an unforgettable experience in my performing life. A moment that made me believe in the power of training, of surrendering my body to more than four decades of dance practice, and of trusting the process no matter how strange the surroundings or circumstances, of the power of art to ride over the horrors and brutality of man. I am so grateful to be an artiste.