Dance needs discussing, even debate in today's clime of closed minds and doors. It needs dialogue, discourse and deliberations. Each city I go to (in a month, 3 on an average and this past month traversed Trivandrum, Pune, Delhi), makes me realize how badly dance needs catalysts so it cuts across binaries and boundaries.
Classical dancers are stuck in their mould. Modern dancers are unstuck because they don't have a mould! In between lies the thinking dance! That can think but not dance. Add the confusion in fusion and you have Bollywood as the only acceptable pan-Indian dance making a mark globally. No matter what classical or modern dance lobbies say most don't practice what they preach. I find myself uniquely placed between two worlds: old India and new; traditional and modern. Wah! What a palate. So I go like a wandering minstrel city to city doing kala prachar. Dancers do that too but they often are limited by their own form, bani, guru, gharana, labels, definitions.
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Excellent article; it also gave an amusing and delightful chuckle to see Ashish place himself as the central vortex of thought and practice of classical and contemporary dance. Fortunately, innumeral. sensibilities, artistic achievement and passionate curiosity and growth mean that all our dance present and future will thrive and is not endangered even without Ashish's commendable personal interests and efforts.
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