A Chinese woman carries a slice of an Indian art form to the heart of China

BEIJING: Like tender butterflies, a flock of young Chinese girls, all dressed in cheerfully colourful salwar-kameez outfits, flutter into a studio at the Beijing Forestry Institute, chattering gaily.

Within minutes, however, their youthful friskiness gives way to a serious solemnity beyond their years as they line up in front of their dance guru and pay their ritualistic obeisance.

Then, as their teacher keeps the beat on her talam instrument, the patter of their tiny feet on the wooden floor resonates around the room as the children perform an intricate Bharatanatyam routine. 

It’s an endearing re-creation of a slice of India in the heart of Beijing, and the person who has made it possible is Jin Shanshan, alias Eesha.

The 35-year-old Chinese woman travelled to India to learn the dance form under the famed dancer Leela Samson, and is now passing on that gift of artistic endeavour to young children in her motherland. 

“I feel I was born to dance,” Jin told DNA in Beijing. At the age of eight, she enrolled at the Oriental Song & Dance Ensemble in Beijing, and learnt the rudiments of a variety of dance forms, including Bharatanatyam, and Japanese and Latin American dance.

She was then hooked on the south Indian dance tradition, and wanted to learn it more extensively. 

But Beijing in the mid-1980s offered no opportunities on that count: even the Beijing Dance Institute didn’t offer lessons in Indian classical dance.

So, Jin figured that if she wanted to realise her dream, she would have to travel to India. First, she enrolled for a degree in Hindi and Indian Culture at the Peking University, and while she was at it, began to apply for scholarships to travel to India.

In 1994, she got that opportunity: she secured admission at the Jawaharlal Nehru University to do an advanced course in Hindi. 

In New Delhi, however, a curious twist of circumstances — and a conflict of schedules — led Jin away from her objective of learning Bharatanatyam under “Leela akka” (as Samson is known to her disciples).

Instead, Jin found herself learning Kathak from Pandit Birju Maharaj! But on a second trip to India in 1998, she was better able to persuade Samson of the earnestness of her interest in Bharatanatyam, and signed on as her student.

She was promptly ‘christened’ Eesha. Learning the entire dance repertoire in just nine months, Jin had her arangetram (debut solo performance) in May 1999. 

Familial considerations put dancing on hold for the next two years. But since 2002, she’s been travelling every year to India, particularly to Kalakshetra in Chennai, the international academy of performing arts, where Samson is currently director.

“I feel a profound sense of homecoming whenever I'm in India, and I’ve received nothing but undiluted love from my guru and my friends,” says Jin. 

Starting up the dance academy in Beijing in 2005, Jin now teaches some 50 children. She and her students have performed at a number of Indian cultural events in Beijing. By now, at today’s dance class, the Chinese children are close to winding up the session.

In conclusion, they line up and recite in flawless Sanskrit, the guru vandana, a sloka that pays obeisance to their teacher.

It’s a touching tribute to Jin, the Chinese woman who has transcended national barriers and embraced the Indian experience, and is an inspirational cultural intermediator between two great civilisations.