Withering tradition of art forms

Subashini PATHMANATHAN

The present approach, understanding and handling of the ancient cultural assets are totally changed in the present society. Some of the main causes are the present lifestyle, living standards and the changing mentality, which are fully responsible for the present situation.

People of the previous generation had specific and limited entertainment such as stage, traditional cultural shows and cinema shows.

The lifestyle was free, and the joint family system prevailed in the society. The children were cherished to learn the moral values, endurance and tolerance among the family members. Besides, the children learnt one or two traditional art forms according to their own will and wish without any outside pressure.

But today in the metropolitan areas, majority of the families live in the apartments, within a certain limited space. In the apartments, the activities of the children are very much restricted.

Practical difficulties

They are forced to confine themselves within a limited area. Even to practise their extra cultural activities, especially dance, vocal music and instrumental music the space was quite limited. Mainly for dance practices the vibration problem affects the direct residence of the apartment.

Hence, most dance students who live in the apartments generally face numerous practical difficulties to master their dance career. Hence, the dance classes have become the learning classes as well as practising classes for the majority of the present generation student community.

Anyhow apartments are one unit building, within the same building practising cultural activities. It might cause some inconvenience or disturbances to the other residences of the same block. Hence the present generation children are very much involved in computer studies and games. For entertainment purpose they spend their free time watching different TV channels, video, and video games.

Most parents are of working class, who are unable to take their children regularly to the extra cultural activities. Even the children who have enough facilities to practise cultural activities - considerable amount of children - do not take much interest, due to laziness, diversion of interest, or the absence of deep involvement with the art forms. Another undeniable truth is that the present generation children have more comforts rather than the earlier generation. Numerous indoor games are feely available at homes, through computer and internet facilities.

Earlier generation parents were the backing and driving force for the present generation outstanding dancers, and for the outstanding musicians. However, majority of the present generation parents do not insist their children to practise at home. Most parents send their children to these fine arts classes, just to learn or to gain some knowledge and experience in the selective art field. Most parents feel their children shouldn’t take up any fine art as their profession, because it is a lifelong challenging career, as well as less scope for earning venture.

Now in all fine art forms, instead of preserving the pristine purity of the classical art forms, now self-styled fine art forms have emerged. Most present young generation children are more or less fascinated by these new types of thrilling fancy art forms rather than preserving and protecting the pure traditional classical art forms.

Traditional dedication

One must learn the traditional art forms systematically with full enthusiasm, with full devotion and dedication. The student community is very much keen to earn and collect maximum paper qualification certificates, rather than performing. Stage performances and performing experience are much more important for a performing art, than the paper qualifications.

Traditional dance forms should adhere to certain norms. And these traditional classical dance forms have no room for modification or modernization. For traditional art forms, preserving the pristine purity of the art forms and aesthetic value are utmost important than anything else. Some important factors such as dedication, sacrifices, interest and involvement are equally important and needed for the fine arts teachers, as well as for the students to protect and promote the art forms.

Selection of the proper fine art teacher is very much an important duty of the parents. Instead of selecting the proper teacher due to various practical difficulties and reasons, the parents send, their children to the nearest or closest classical fine art classes. Sometimes that might affect the lifelong art career and the interest of the children. But earlier generation parents took a lot of effort to select a proper art teacher for their children, without considering the distance and other factors.

Today, unfortunately, the total number of audience for the classical art programmes is quite lesser as compared to earlier. Meanwhile for some substandard superficial programmes, the total amount of audience is quite higher than the classical programmes. This is a challenge to the classical art world today. Even some of the private TV channels promote and produce vivid programmes under the name of classical art forms. Impact of such programmes might affect the classical art world either directly or indirectly.

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