Article - Charukesi: The bittersweet ocean of love to pure Krishna consciousness, A perspective on music, movement, and the mind by Bana Shastri Ramanath

In search of meaning
Life is often likened to a journey of highs and lows, roses and thorns, and bittersweet moments. As we age, memories may fade, yet the sensations of pain and pleasure can remain, leaving fossil-like impressions within us. Perhaps this is why older faces sometimes carry fleeting, childlike smiles touched with melancholy, as emotions pass effortlessly and involuntarily across them like images appearing on a screen. Is the mind quietly revisiting a lifetime of triumphs, disappointments, joys, and sorrows? I often wondered about this while watching my parents, both of whom lived to nearly 100.

These reflections returned as I prepared for a dance performance. I searched for a song gentle enough for my injured knees, yet powerful enough to stir my consciousness and convey love, joy, melancholy, and warmth. I also wanted the music to evoke the painless healing I have occasionally experienced during and after my performances. When mind, body, and feelings move in harmony, merging as one with the music, I have experienced that the mind can become so absorbed in the process that pain seems to dissolve, for a time. Those experiences have inspired me to explore and share how music and dance can transform a lifetime of mixed memories into a more peaceful, expansive form of love through artistic expression, a moving meditation. 

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Bharatanatyam constructs built round philosophy of Jyotirlingam - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

The Bharatanatyam program at the Habitat, sadly attracting a very small gathering, presented two finished performers, Mithun Shyam and Nilava Sen. The presentation at Stein auditorium constituted four of the twelve Jyotirlingam sites. Aiding the dancers were a team of capable musicians topped by Sudesh Menon the vocalist, whose melodious singing, includes creativity - for each of the Jyotirlingams was presented through a varnam composition of his own creation, without mangling the format of this musical genre, while adhering to the thematic specifics of each of the holy places. Uma Ganeshan on the violin with Ratul Kumar on the mridangam provided good support. 

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Anita says...November 2026

October moved like a single restless current between three cities. In Kolkata, the pandals rose in astonishing variety, each one a temporary palace of craft where bamboo, cane, cloth, metal and light were shaped into everything from intimate street shrines to towering architectural fantasies - the makers' skill turning devotion into pure spectacle. In Madrid, the staccato of flamenco jostled against the late night pulse of churros and hot chocolate - heat and music spilling from plazas as if the city refused to go indoors. Finally, the Venice Biennale that offered rooms with a quieter intensity, where contemporary art sat in careful conversation with the lagoon's shifting light.

One month, three kinds of looking, and the shared pleasure of watching human hands, minds, bodies and imagination at work.

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Article - When AI can perform, what remains to be cultivated in the artist? by Rohit Viswanath

This essay draws upon the writings of Dr. Padmaja Suresh, Ācārya for Nāṭya Pedagogy at Nāṭyaśāstra Gurukulam, on the philosophical, aesthetic and spiritual dimensions of Nāṭya, and the guidance of Dr. M. B. Athreya, the Gurukulam's Marga Darshak, on human development, institutional responsibility and Dhārmic statecraft. These perspectives inform the essay's engagement with AI, artistic judgement and self-governance.

A movement can be recorded, its geometry analysed, its execution compared against a reference, and a sequence of gestures generated through computational systems. Yet the cultivation of an artist entails a question of a different order. What happens to the person who practises? How are the body, perception, affect, imagination and judgement progressively refined through engagement with an art? And what distinguishes the possession of a repertoire from the cultivated capacity to interpret, embody and bring it to life? 

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Prism - Rang at Rangmanch, The role of colour in Kathak choreography by Ashima Sharma

Colour is an important aesthetic and symbolic element communicating emotional and structural expression in Kathak choreography. It gives narrative communication and visual coherence beyond its decorative function. Colour drives as a semiotic tool that shapes mood, descriptive clarity, character portrayal and spatial design. Embedded in Indian aesthetic traditions and evolved through performance practices, colour influences how the audience perceives dance movements, interprets a character, and experiences a particular rasa. This research article examines the heterogeneous role of colour in Kathak, focusing on costumes, lightings, stage compositions and principles of each Gharana. It also includes works by Kumudini Lakhia and Aditi Mangaldas drawing from classical texts, modern scholarship, and contemporary choreographic case studies. It advocates that the function of colour is not merely as an ornamentation but as a choreographic and semiotic tool that shapes the wholesomeness of a Kathak performance. Through exploration of existing theory of rasa and colour symbolism, cross-cultural examples of choreographies and Gharana-specific costume practices, this study argues that function of colour is as a powerful emotional and narrative structural element in Kathak dance performances.

 

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Kathak as dance theatre in Shovana Narayan's Lalitarpan Festival - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Lalitarpan, the annual festival of Asavari established in 1979, this year centered its celebration round the Yudhisthira/Draupadi interaction, based on Pavan Varma's book inspired by a work in Urdu, going into the emotional depths of this uneasy alliance between the head of the Pandavas and their wife Draupadi....

FINE DEBUT BY KALASHREE STUDENTS IN LUCKNOW GHARANA KATHAK OF GURU MUNNA SHUKLA

Kathak youngsters do not have the equivalence of an Arangetram, marking the dancer's formal stage appearance in a full-length performance. What students of Kalashree presented at the India International Centre auditorium, was a debut on similar lines for Kathak students of Kavita Thakur, a senior disciple of Lucknow gharana's late Kathak Guru Munna Shukla...

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Profile - Kalamandalam Vasantha celebrates golden jubilee of Nruthanjaly by SK Venugopal

From a distinguished alma mater to nurturing generations of dancers, the inspiring journey of a dedicated guru and the golden legacy of 'Nruthanjaly'.

The story of Kalamandalam Vasantha is one of passion, perseverance, commitment and selfless dedication to the classical dance traditions of India. A proud alumnus of Kerala Kalamandalam, Cheruthuruthy, from where she graduated in 1975, Vasantha went on to carve a remarkable niche for herself, not merely as a practitioner of classical dance, but as a devoted teacher who made the propagation of this rich artistic heritage the mission of her life. She had the good fortune of getting trained in various classical dance forms under eminent gurus viz. Kalamandalam Sathyabhama, A.R.R. Bhaskar Rao, Kalamandalam Padmini, Palani Swami, Vasudeva Panicker, Kalamandalam Ramaswami, Sukumari Narendra Menon, Thanjavur Kittappa Pillai, Thanjavur Chandrasekhar, Vaishnavi, Kalamandalam Mohana Thulasi and others.

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