Mixed week of folk and stylised traditions - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Treated generally to tailored, stylized fare of classical music and dance, the audience at the IIC auditorium, Delhi, seemed to get caught on the wrong foot, with the very different texture of the no-holds-barred exuberance, very much in the old Mujra style of the Lavani and Jogwa dancers from Maharashtra (performance courtesy NCZCC and Culture Ministry). Originating during 18th -19tth century Maharashtra under the Peshwas, who were great patrons of this art form, as a means of morale boosting entertainment for soldiers, Lavani  performers are mostly from among the community of Dangars (shepherds) of the Sholapur region of Maharashtra, their art a provocative blend of storytelling, dance and music, brimful of socio-political satire, built round society, religion and politics....

At the Habitat Centre’s Stein auditorium, watching the poised Bharatanatyam in the Tanjore Bani presented by Sneha Mahesh, trained under dancer Priya Murle of Chennai, one was surprised that this dancer had never before performed in Delhi. Entering the starkly bare stage, her curtain-raiser was a Muthuswamy Dikshitar composition Ananda Nadana Prakasham in raga Kedaram, one of the panchabhuta sthala kritis dedicated to Lord Shiva as the embodiment of space or akash in the Nataraja temple. Brilliant as innumerable suns, the Lord as granter of worldly pleasures and liberation, reveals himself with his dancing feet, to sages Patanjali and Vyagrapada.....

With a capital in siege for a week, understandably lean audiences at the Habitat Stein auditorium greeted both the Bharatanatyam and Pravat Kumar Swain’s group Odissi Nrutya Arpana. This writer was struck by one stark difference, in that Sneha Mahesh performed on a bare stage - with even the announcements from backstage - whereas the tastefully decorated altar for Jagannath greeting the onlookers for the Group Odissi recital led  by teacher Pravat Kumar Swain, was the starting point of prolonged formalities, which went on for over quarter of an hour – with every person known to the dance world in the audience, being called to the stage to be honoured - draped with elegant dupattas, with the hospitality involving  a bag containing other goodies!.... 

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Article - The lullaby that awakened - Dr. Lata Surendra

The First Gurus!

'To be is to know that you are not separate, but an ongoing flow of every history gone before.'

My father was the scholar and linguist who awakened me to the magic of words. Through scriptures, chants, and books, he introduced me to friends across epochs. He taught me to romance poets who charmed my soul, and philosophers who silenced the hunger of the dust. In his eyes, I sought to dance past every milestone; he made achievement so effortless that it became a habit. Yet, when I grew too lost in the past, he gently urged, "Close the books now, dear, and read from the pages of life." Growing up under British rule, his accent was flawlessly British - to me, he was simply the ideal, and he was my own.

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Anita says...August 2026

July has been 31 days of ceaseless unrest. Ablaze with arguments and heated rhetoric about issues of representation and race swapping. About translations, cinematic liberty and appropriation. The rumble became a roar with the student unrests in India that started in with a leaked examination paper and the subsequent student protests in New Delhi has rocked the government and the ripples continue as I write this monthly message. 

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Article - My Guru's greatest choreography: An institution that taught me to fall in love - Dr. Amrithasruthi Radhakrishnan

Every Guru Purnima, we celebrate the guru. This year, my gratitude extends beyond my guru to the institution she has cultivated over three decades: Natya Vriksha. I have come to recognise that the greatest choreography of dancer Geeta Chandran (Akka, as generations of us affectionately call her) may not be a work created for the stage at all. It is the institution she has built. To build an institution is among the most demanding acts of artistic practice. Choreographies conclude after the final applause, but institutions demand care every single day.

When I first entered Natya Vriksha as a young student, everyone around me believed I was rolling in a dance school, where I would acquire a vocabulary of movement and, one day, perform. Little did I know that this was where my becoming would quietly unfold. Today, whatever I have become, as a dancer, researcher, a teacher, administrator, and a cultural practitioner, has its roots there. Natya Vriksha gave me ground steady enough to take flight from, and a place to land each time I returned.

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Thoughts of an 82-year-old Kathak dancer: Column by Janaki Patrik

My hair has turned white and I've celebrated my 82nd birthday. It's now patently evident that I've been around for a while! So when young Kathak dancers and their parents discover that I've been a Kathak dancer... student, performer, guru, choreographer... for 60 plus years, they sometimes ask me for advice.

I suppose they expect me to tell them to practice tatkar every day for several hours, followed by an orderly regimen of bol parhant and repetitions of chakkurs, tukras, parans, paramelu, kavita torahs etcetera etcetera etcetera .......

But that's not the advice I give. I speak more about longevity in terms of sustaining our lives as creative artists within a supportive community, and of maintaining the "life of the mind" while sharing what we know and appreciating the gifts of others. 

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Article - Guru Purnima-From darkness to light - Bana Shastri Ramanath

Guru Purnima is a special full moon day that is observed once a year. It is also celebrated to honor the birthday of the ancient enlightened Hindu Guru Veda Vyasa who organized and compiled the Vedas and authored the epic Mahabharatam - an encyclopedia of the ever-evolving human drama. As Guru Purnima approaches, I feel moved to express gratitude to my Gurus, guided by faith and a sense of responsibility shaped by my upbringing in traditional Indian culture. People of Indian heritage around the world celebrate Guru Purnima through rituals, worship, gift-giving, and other expressions of respect. When my own students offer their gratitude and appreciation on this day, I cannot ignore the meaning and significance of Guru Purnima.

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Article - The thirty second sentence, How the 30-second loop is dismantling the Performing Arts - Dr. Lata Surendra

We have reduced the vastness of human expression, the agonizing architecture of art and the very rhythm of life to a fleeting thirty-second glance. In the modern cultural landscape, thirty seconds is no longer a mere unit of time, it is a violent trial. It is the maximum boundary of human attention before the thumb twitches, the screen changes, and the psyche shifts. Yet we wonder why a relentless, automated loop of these same thirty seconds leaves us completely reeled. We are caught in a hypnotic vertigo, spun around by a carousel of fragments that mimic depth but offer only a momentary spark. Time it was, when surrender to the aesthetics cradling art was ever so vital. To watch a classical dancer trace the geometry of grief across a stage; to hear a vocalist hold a single, trembling note until it fractured the silence, or to witness a theatrical monologue build its emotional scaffolding over the course of hours - these required a shared covenant of time. It was absolutely 'a transaction' of presence. Today, that covenant is broken. 

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