Grandeur of Kathakali which never fails to awe - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

For the 'Kathakali branthan' sold to the grandeur of Kathakali, no other art form can stand in comparison to what is in reality, a larger than life visualisation through dance and drama. And amongst the reputed plays forming the repertoire of this art form, 18th century writer Unnayi Warrier's attakatha Nalacharitam takes pride of place. 

For Kalakshetra's three day Kathakali festival Bhava Bhavanam Anubhavam, the first day's presentation comprising scenes from the 4th part of Nalacharitam, had its curtain raiser in a neatly rendered Purappadu invocation by dancers of Kalakshetra.

Almost co-eval with this festival was South Zone Cultural Centre sponsored Kathakali evening, featuring Prabal Gupta in streevesham, in a new work conceived by him, to fit into the 'Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav' series, on 'Desh bhakti'

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Obit/Tribute - Alaknanda Samarth: A rare jewel of the theatre world lost - Dr. S.D. Desai

As much as Alaknanda Samarth had prominence as a drama artist much sought after till the end, in the razzmatazz of the modern film and theatre world the value of this rare jewel, it seems, was known but to a few connoisseurs besides contemporaries who had worked with her, her disciples from drama schools in Delhi and Thrissur and members of her distinguished family (Shobhna Samarth was her aunt), all of whom of course paid handsome tributes to her. 

What lent rarity to the genius of Alak, as she was fondly called, was a combination of an exceptional sensibility that like a sharp antenna received signals of characteristic traits of an extraordinary character and a creative power of her idiom to express those traits in terms of physical action and speech sounds. This combination received a push from her irrepressible desire to seek varying experiences as a woman, and she realized they were far more diverse and painful than her male counterpart, in life. Gifted directors of the time spotted this spark in her and helped it grow into a raging fire of creativity. 

The recognition of her acting  potential initially came from Ebrahim Alkazi before he became director of NSD (Delhi)

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The A to Z of dance in 2021! - Dance Matters: Column by Ashish Mohan Khokar

Anita Ratnam kept the flame aglow in dark and depressing times with posts, photos, portal upgrade and professionally seeking answers through an Impact Questionnaire which hopefully most filled there and then. I did. What doesn't get done today, never gets done - this is the most important take home of PCE (Post Covid Era).

B for Bollywood for making dance insufferable in films and on TV. WHY ARE WE SUFFERING THIS SILENTLY? Dancers can be very vocal where self-interest is concerned, but here see no opportunity to advance art and outreach? Why is no one even commenting on social media, which is now almost unsocial? The new normal is that one's life is so empty and in need of endorsement that one needs to be in the face and over-active. Sad.

Culture ministry mounted many events but one that got moffusil India to Delhi to dance on prestigious Republic Day 2022, was the VANDE BHARATAM Nritya Utsav. 

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The Dancing Advertisements: Do they benefit the arts? - Soch: Column by Dr. Arshiya Sethi

Let me begin by wishing you a very Happy New Year. I hope and pray that this year sees us escape this fast-mutating virus, at the earliest. Apart from this being by far the most common desire on earth, it is not unrealistic to wish for it in January. January is a month named after the Roman God Janus. Janus is the God of new beginnings, gates, transmissions, passages, and even endings. Because he can look at what has gone by and also what is yet to come, he is often depicted with two faces, each looking antipodally.

Exactly this feature, of looking at the back and the front at the same time allows me a segue into what I wanted to write about. Advertisements. Particularly those that have used dance and dance moves. Those that have used well known dances consciously, those that have used well known dancers, sometimes as dancers and sometimes as very animated actors, those that have used dance and dancers only as mise-en-scene, and those that have used dance moves to suggest mood and 'masti'. Then there are those which have used the image of great artistes to popularize awards in their names. For example, The Hindu runs the M.S Subbulakshmi Award, and uses her photograph. That sort of promotion is outside the purview of this article. I am looking at commercial advertisements, particularly those using dance.

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Parampara Festival: Unusual jugalbandis of different regional genres of music and dance - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

It calls for more than the usual music/ dance program announcement to attract an audience for live programmes, during the pandemic. So, for the silver jubilee of the annual Parampara Festival mounted by Raja/Radha/Kaushalya Reddy's Natya Tarangini, established forty five years ago in New Delhi, was this year's unusual concept of jugalbandis comprising interactions of music, dance, percussion traditions, belonging to different regional genres. This opened out unexplored territories for artistic imagination - thereby luring audiences to the open air performance space with the galleried seating, in the home of the Reddys, braving Delhi's cold and pollution.

Normally, established singers or instrumentalists known to perform in solitary glory, are not inclined, even on special occasions, to sharing the stage with dancers in a jugalbandi. That reputed artists from the music world coordinated and worked with dancers, says something about the persuasive powers of Natya Tarangini. Also, economic hardships sustained during the pandemic by the less affluent among artists in particular, the sad loss of some of the greatest of singers and instrumentalists, along with having to live for months in lone splendour within the four walls of the home, have spurted a new sense of fellow feeling and a need for sharing.

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Guru Gopinath was a dancer par excellence. Dance was everything that mattered to him. Money could not lure him to do anything if that came in the way of dance. To fathom why, I asked him the following question.

Why did you decline the offer of acting in films though you were offered a large sum of money?
Performance on a stage is not like performing in a film. It has different ways of acting out situations. I was not capable of that, because I could not sustain the bhava of the character on account of the innumerable takes a film involves. So instead of accepting Rs 36000 for a role in a film, I stood firm and had no qualms in rejecting it in favour of stage performance, where I had the opportunity of sustaining the bhava of the character to be portrayed.

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Interview - Sutikshna Veeravalli: Dance and dissolution of boundaries - Rolie Breja

"I grew up with a purist mentality because, somewhere, I knew I would be judged if I didn't. I wonder if most people who consider themselves purist defend that identity because that's the expectation they sense from others... that that's how a specific group of others would like them to be, in order to retain legitimacy. Ultimately, I don't consider myself a purist anymore. There is a sense of elitism and power it stems from. And I would like to stem from inclusion, instead," says Sutikshna Veeravalli, an Indian dancer in Chicago, US, who has grown up there, as a person and as an artist. She has been pursuing Bharatanatyam and Carnatic vocal music for over 20 years.

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Prism - Connecting to Ramlila through its rituals - Sunil Sunkara

When perceived from a western viewpoint, the word ritual resonates with solemnity of action, religious symbolism and conformation of tradition. The Indian perspective is to look at any concept through a distilled viewpoint (darshana). Abhinavagupta mentions that it is not liberation that is the ultimate goal of mankind but the aesthetic relish of liberation (moksha).The objective of lilanukaran tradition is an enjoyment of that relish or Rasa and then absorbing the fruit of that experience into the daily cycle of mundane life.

Ramlila, literally "Rama's play", is a performance of the Ramayana epic in a series of scenes that include song, narration, recital and dialogue based largely upon the Tulsidas Ramcharitmanas. It is performed across India during the festival of Dussehra, held each year according to the ritual calendar in autumn. The most representative Ramlilas are those of Ayodhya, Ramnagar and Benares, Vrindavan, Almora, Sattna and Madhubani.

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Unmute - Performing Artists and the Law: An unexplored and ignorant landscape of exclusive rights of performers as performers - Somabha Bandopadhay

Legality and applicability of rights of and as performers
Performing arts spaces, performers and every stakeholder of art forms, dedicates themselves to the learning, practice and professing of art with utmost sincerity and conviction. Having immersed themselves in this exercise, they often unknowingly, forgo their rights- rights unique to them. These are the double set of rights that they enjoy as performers- their individual rights and their special rights as performers.

Has this come as a shock to you? It is not surprising. In the Indian context, it would be a shocker if a performer is introduced to the bill of performers’ rights. I don’t know how many would believe it. But it is true. Performers have exclusive rights as performers. While some would be happy to learn this, experience reveals that others would be disbelieving, hesitant, uninformed, and clueless. Some would totally ignore the issue, even though it pertains to them in such a major way.
 
It is in this context that the present article hopes to shed light on the rights that performers have, which are unique to them, and which have been legally established under the law of the land. A conglomeration of few laws of the country when interpreted in unison, as is expected to be done while dealing with subject matters that concerns evolving concepts, nuances and fields of expertise, confer these bundles of rights on to performers.

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Roving Eye curated by Anita Ratnam - Dec 2021

 

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Anita says...December 2021

 Dance is the healing treasure within your spirit

That only movements of passion can set free

Sometimes in life confusion tends to arise
And only dialogue of dance seems to make sense

- Shah Asad Rizvi, author

In my very last message of 2021, I look forward to writing about watching dance. In person. Not on the small screen. Night after night, seeking those moments of being in the same space as the artiste, watching a moving body instead of an ant size blip, flattened by a digital device and bleached of rasa. Breathing the same air, though masked, applauding and savouring the sound of multiple palms coming together at the end.

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Bewildering variety in Narthaki's Devi Diaries continues - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

After such a varied impression of deified manifestations witnessed in Devi Diaries, how can one forget the everyday woman in real life, whose lot, to say the least, leaves much to be desired? Narthaki, very rightly felt that sans this realistic touch, the project on the feminine mystique would be incomplete. Five young modern dance practitioners, (considering the fact that generally as a group, artists of this genre like to function in their own orbit) generously responded to Anita Ratnam's invitation, and these individual takes on woman in everyday life, make for a very interesting contrast.

Flattened on her back on the floor, face secured in a steel mask with grills, Paramita Saha's goddess, the Dayvi Everyday in her home, raises herself to face yet another multitasking day, hurrying through household chores and much else - not losing her nurturing personality, or sense of joy in dancing within the small space of her home -looking at the outside world from her balcony- her equanimity and optimism undaunted, even as she faces daily challenges from systemic forces of patriarchal oppression. Apart from a convincing dance portrayal of Paramita's brief glimpse into the Everyday Woman, the work was complemented by good camera work catching all angles with clarity.

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Cultural (il)literacy - Dance Matters: Column by Ashish Mohan Khokar

It is amazing how literate our people are about Indian culture. Or illiterate. Appalling actually. A quiz master of a popular TV show - an ageing film icon no less - didn't seem to know what Bhavai was when a participant from Gujarat spoke about it. It is folk theatre. Very popular like Nautanki of Uttar Pradesh or Therukoothu of Tamilnadu or Yakshagana of Karnataka. Unless he was joking or acting. At another forum, a babu asked, "Can you play Carnatic sarod?" Eeks! Third gem reserved for end of this opening, was the best: "When was Ali added to Kathak to make it Kathakali?" It's not just in arts; even normally 95% population knows zilch about Indian culture. Basic things. I roam all over India like a yogi or migrant person, I see it firsthand. Still, ALL south Indians are Madrasi and for them ALL north Indians are Punjabis. All Eastern folks are Bengali and West means abroad! Few know the seven sisters of North East. Their map, capitals or cuisine. Madhya land, forget it, one big blob. Even in cultural institutions they don't know Baroda had Maratha rulers who also ruled Tanjore in Tamilnadu. They don't know Kashmir except for in films. Rajasthan means camels. Epic means a TV channel.

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Let us talk today about honorary degrees given to artistes. This is not coming from the discourse in the country about dubious degrees, misleading titles, and unheard-of domains of study. Instead, it comes from the fact that Padma Bhushan recipient, Kumudini Lakhia, the grande dame of Kathak, the senior most Kathak dancer and one of the most highly decorated artistes of the country, was awarded an Honorary degree, of Doctor of Letters (D. Litt.), by the ITM University, Gwalior, on 20th November 2021, on the occasion of its 6th convocation. I am so happy to be concluding the Soch column for this year, an annus horribilis in many ways, with a positive story.

ITM is a private University that has honoured distinguished personalities in the past too - since 2016. Among them are a mixed bag of journalists, sports persons, activists, media personalities, and arts icons, numbering almost forty in these six years. With this recognition, Kumiben has joined the ranks of arts icons like music maestros Dr. L. Subramanyam and Pt. Ajay Chakraborty, renowned artists like Prabhakar Kolte, Krishan Khanna and Arpita Singh, poets like Ashok Vajpeyi, film makers like Shyam Benegal and Govind Nihalani, actors like Naseeruddin Shah, and in dance Pt. Birju Maharaj. These are all past awardees from the arts.

It is remarkable that a university that is primarily a Technology and Management University has seen such value in the arts.

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Interview - An imaginary interview with Guru Gopinath - Part 5 - Tapati Chowdhurie

Was your program at Kavadiar School a success?

At the end of our performance, the Maharaja and Maharani came to congratulate and praise us for our presentation. He wanted to know our next plan. When I expressed my desire to stay on in Thiruvananthapuram with his grace, he promised to do the needful. He wanted us to request the chief secretary of the palace for a scheme to start a school and that was an indication to the success of our program. We laid the foundation stone of our school. G.P. Shekhar and I chose to name the new school 'Sri Chitrodaya Nartakalayam.' We then prepared a plan in English for its running. It was naturally going to be run under the guardianship of the palace administrator and presented it to the chief secretary Dr. Kunjan Pillai. He replied that he would inform the palace (Kottaram in Malayalam) and get back to us. Shekhar did not expect a reply before ten days.

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Online Culture: The idea whose time has come - The Eastern Eye: Column by Dr.Utpal K Banerjee

In the West, the new vogue word in the face of pandemic and the decline of all cultural institutions and practices is the revengeful coinage: 'cancel culture'! This critic would strongly recommend we counter this notion in India, take the bull by the horn and use the pandemic to create our own vogue word: 'online culture'. This is keeping in view our technology scenario: the number of computer users in the country is 14% of the population, the Internet users are 6% and the people who possess mobile is 63%. The percentages are not negligible, considering the fact that our population is around 138 crores in 2021. Working on these figures, there are roughly 19 crores of computer users, out of whom 8 crores use the Internet, while 45 crores of people possess mobiles, mostly smartphones. These are not inconsiderable figures!

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Prism - Reviving a lost tradition of dance - Kiran Java

A dance is deemed as an Indian classical dance when its theory and practice can be traced to the Natyashastra, a performing arts treatise dated to 200 B.C - 200 C.E. attributed to Sage Bharata. Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Odissi, Kathakali, Sattriya, Manipuri, and Mohiniyattam are recognized as classical dances by Sangeet Natak Akademi. Chhau is included in the list by the Ministry of Culture.

While other classical dances have evolved their art form from the standpoint of dance treatises, it is no secret that Kathak in its current form is difficult to link with the practices stated in the Natyashastra, the very text that marks its classical status. As a result, tracing Kathak, the principal dance of northern India, has long been a source of debate among Kathak dance practitioners.

To this end, Dr. Pt. Puru Dadheech recently presented a daring blueprint connecting Kathak classical dance to its texts. Dr. Dadheech, a Padma Shri, Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee, and Ministry of Culture Tagore National Fellow, has spent over 60 years researching, practicing, documenting, and teaching Kathak. According to him, the only way to reconcile Kathak dance with its theory is to research relevant dance texts from the medieval period, notably from the 11th through 19th centuries.

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Dance expressions built round manifestations of divinised female and male energies - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

While conceiving of male and female principles as two halves of one unified deified entity, in the form of Shiva/Shakti, Hindu pantheon has, in the midst of this ingrained principle of complementariness, visualised each half in independent manifestations of supreme power. Coincidentally, separate dance events during the week, brought out the polarities of the dynamic and the gross, the physical and metaphysical, the manifest and unmanifest qualities, each of the divinities male or female is symbolised in. The one in the many and vice versa, despite all the apparent differences, ultimately represents forms to meditate upon in the endless search for that state of perfect equanimity regarded as the highest goal in life.

DEVI DIARIES
Trust arts activist and fierce advocate for the rights of women, Dr. Anita Ratnam, founder and managing editor of Narthaki.com, to conceive of dance built round the theme of the 'Devi'- as the ideal expression for Navaratri celebration. Curating Devi Diaries for Narthaki, Anita Ratnam was ably assisted by members of her crew, Lalitha Venkat (manager), Seher Noor Mehra (line producer) and Surya Rao (Editor). Narthaki's 'Devi Diaries' in its second season add up to a staggering variety of dance interpretations woven round the Devi - contributed by a selected group of dancers comprising established seniors and talented youngsters, male and female, pertaining to all dance forms, classical and modern, comprising contrasts representing the idealised and the realistic.

FACETS OF SHIVA
Coincidentally, with this ongoing celebration of divinity in the feminine aspect, alongside came its complementary opposite of male divinity in Facets of Shiva, a group offer by Sankhya Dance Company from Mumbai, in Bharatanatyam, presented at the India International Centre's Fountain Lawns, as part of this year's IIC festival celebration. Choreographer Vaibhav Arekar's approach to group presentation, no matter how oft treated the subject, always has a unique quality. 

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Obit/Tribute - Dr. Liesbeth Pankaja Bennink (1955-2021) - Jeetendra Hirschfeld

Drs. Liesbeth Pankaja Bennink passed away on November 4, 2021. ('Drs' is a specific Dutch Academic title, similar to 'Dr'.)

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Interview - An imaginary interview with Guru Gopinath - Part 4 - Tapati Chowdhurie

Master, what was the result of the driver's visit to Kunnamkulam village where Thangamani lived?

The driver returned to give me the bad news that both her father and Mukundaraja were not in favour of our getting married. The driver in fact advised me to give up my wish to marry Thangamani.

Later that evening my meeting with an acquaintance, a retired military serviceman, Pattyethu Raman Nair, was a godsend. During my conversation with him I told him about my wish. He said one of his relatives lived close to Thangamani's house and he would go there next morning and try to talk to Thangamani and gauge the situation there. True to his word, the very next day he left for Kunnamkulam to meet Thangamani and returned in the evening.

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Article - On self-expression - Yazhini SP

 In the performing arts of India, the audience is not a spectator, but a participant. This principle implies that a responsibility is placed on the audience. But does this matter concern the artist?

Today, there is a cloud of anxiety centered on the experience of dancing. It must be truthful, it must be spiritual, it must be profound, revelatory, meditative, and so on.

There is no cloud of anxiety centered on the audience. After all, the audience is "led" by the artist to the inner experience of rasa. No artist wants to be known for "playing to the gallery." The audience must be "uplifted" in a performance, from whatever low depths they have sunk into. Dancers very much care about the number of people in the audience. But as far as the craft of the dancer and the stuff of dance are concerned, the audience is an irrelevance.

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Bharatanatyam dancer and choreographer Divya Ravi has been producing some interesting content from her home during the lockdown. Along with her Carnatic vocalist husband Dr. Sharan Subramaniam, she has produced some made-for-camera pieces that explore the new medium to the fullest. She is among the dancers I have seen in the past year who are not simply filming stage presentations at home, but developing a new way of thinking about choreography amid restrictions that make stage presentations impossible.

One of her recent works is ‘Kanhopatra’, an abridged version of a potentially full-length work about the Marathi courtesan-turned-Varkari poetess Kanhopatra. I spoke to Divya about filming works like that, and dancing for the camera.

What happens to these short made-for-camera productions in a post-pandemic future?
Kanhopatra is a work in progress. And I do intend, at some point, to build it into a full-fledged work for the stage –about an hour and 15 minutes. Right now, it’s only a 30-minute work. I have all the material ready with me for the stage; because I had to do it in a digital format, I had trimmed a lot of the content, mainly to reduce the time, considering the digital attention spans of the audience. Even musically, when I take it to the stage, it will be a full-fledged orchestra. So far, we have only used the voice with no other instrument.

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Dance Criticism - A few principles for writing about Indian classical dance: Column by Janaki Patrik

In her article MOURNING MY PROFESSION published on 29 October 2021 in the VILLAGE VOICE, eminent American dance writer and critic Elizabeth Zimmer wrote a eulogy for the demise of dance criticism. Ms. Zimmer's thoughtful observations prompted me to revisit some thoughts I had about writing dance critiques of classical Indian dance performances. I had originally organized my thoughts into an essay written in 2014, which I have revised considerably for this article.

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Unmute - Power and what it does - Paramita Saha

In our recent Arts & the Law sessions organized by Unmute.help, one question returned often: 'If the person on the other side is a really powerful one, what should we do?' That brought me to the question of what power is and how was it perceived and by who. What makes the powerful truly powerful, what corrupts the powerful and how do they wield their power.

The earliest perception of power is in the family when we are children. Who makes the rules, who calls the shots, who decides, who pays for things, where does the buck stop. Then in school: who knows more, who can instruct, who can punish. Then in our relationships, who decides what happens, who apologizes more often, who has more money, who knows more about how things work, at work who reports to whom, who can force you to do more, who can make you work on your holidays, who can taunt you, goad you, ridicule you, bully you.

Coleman says that power is associated with personal characteristics of individuals or groups whereas authority is tied to social positions or roles. Abuse of power in the arts happens as a strong decoction of both of these. Traditional authority invested in our gurus or teachers is socially legitimate, historically valid, morally conforming to precedent. Students are supposed to 'obey' and not question. Students of the arts, especially dance, are physically vulnerable, open to corrections by the teacher or seniors acting as teachers or seniors assuming to be teachers who find bullying a common way to impose their authority.

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Anita says...November 2021

 “In all affairs, it is a healthy thing now and then to hang a question mark on the things you have long taken for granted.”

- Bertrand Russell


After two years, I returned to the USA. And spent most of my time walking the streets, absorbing the gorgeous Fall colours in Central Park and observing the many changes that Covid had forced upon this vibrant city. Especially in the arts. As Martin Wechsler, consultant for New York’s FALL FOR DANCE festival confessed, “Even as dancers stayed home with no shows, the producers, directors, fund raisers, editors, camera people and administrators worked harder than ever to keep this sector alive and ready for a time of return.”

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Roving Eye curated by Anita Ratnam - Nov 2021

 

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Prism - Devi Diaries 2021: Part 2

 

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Obit/Tribute - Ace violinist Narayan Parthasarathy passes away - Vijay Shanker

Mumbai based ace violinist Narayan Parthasarathy, left for his heavenly abode, after a massive cardiac arrest on the morning of 17th October 2021. He was 53 and leaves behind his family of music lovers and musicians. For more than three decades, Narayan was a professional musician, rendering musical support for several music and dance performances in Mumbai and around the globe.

Narayan was the son of Lakshmi and Narayan Rao and was born on January 18, 1968 in Kumbakonam, Tamil Nadu. A Mumbai lad, he did his post graduation in Commerce, completed a diploma in Mass Communication and EXIM from St.Xaviers, Mumbai. Music has been an integral part of the family; his mother Lakshmi and elder brother Sridar are both accomplished and popular musicians. True to the tradition of the family, Narayan showed keen interest in music, so much that during his childhood, whenever the family went out to attend a function or a temple visit, one would always see Narayan sitting right in front of the Nadaswaram players, happily enjoying the music. Narayan's parents spotted his flair for music at a young age.

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Bengal's Milton - icon of rebellion - The Eastern Eye: Column by Dr.Utpal K Banerjee

Jugo Prabortak Madhukovi (The Epoch-Maker Poet Madhu) presented on September 29 was a dance drama by Jodhpur Park Saraswat Sanskriti Kendra and directed by Kabita Chatterjee and Shubhasis Dutta. Founded by the eminent Bharatanatyam dancer Anita Mallick in 1984, the Kendra has been producing many significant events over the last few decades, with current production on the Madhusudan Manch, named after the poet himself! Here is how the production was viewed by the Kendra: "In the arena of Bengali literature, Michael Madhusudan Dutt is considered as an unparalleled talent responsible for bringing on the Renaissance in literature written in Bengali language. Born in 1828, he was a poet, a dramaturge and a farce writer. Attracted by the Western culture, he converted from Hindu religion to Christianity during his youth and started producing his literary works in English language. In his early life, Dutt married and divorced an English lady Rebecca McTavish Thompson. Later, a French woman Emilia Henrietta Sofia became his second wife. During the second phase of life, the poet focussed on writing Bengali literature. His credentials for creating Sonnet in Bengali language and inventing Blank Verse, a rhyming pattern of poem, are well founded. His personal life was more dramatic and full of heart-rending sagas. The great poet and playwright died prematurely in 1873."

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Interview - An imaginary interview with Guru Gopinath - Part 3 - Tapati Chowdhurie

This is the third part of my imaginary interview of Guru Gopinath, the answers of which have been taken from his autobiography in Malayalam translated for me by Babita Nair, a Bharatanatyam aspirant. In the previous two parts of the series, I wrote about Guru Gopinath's meeting with American dancer Esther Luella Sherman/Ragini Devi, with whose initiative Kathakali was presented for the first time outside Kerala in Bombay, where he created an audience for Kathakali. I wrote about his intense self training to learn English to converse with Ragini Devi and read newspaper reviews and reports. I touched upon his hearing of the beautiful maiden Thangamani who was the first student of Mohiniattam under the first teacher on the subject in Kalamandalam. I also elaborated on his connect with the royal family of Travancore and his receiving the Veera Srinkhala award from the Maharaja.

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Prism - Devi Diaries 2021: Part 1

Inspired by the writings of Sri Aurobindo's 'The Mother,' Narthaki.com initiated DEVI DIARIES in 2020, inviting artistes to share their personal experiences and enhance it with a brief video presentation of their favorite Goddess. This is the second edition of Devi Diaries where dance talent was chosen through audition. DD 2 features premiere performances of talented artistes portraying Devis from different cultures of various regions in India, across styles, generations and languages.

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Interview - An imaginary interview with Guru Gopinath - Part 2 - Tapati Chowdhurie

 

Since you were not conversant with the English language what was the language of communication between you and Ragini Devi?

In my conversations with Ragini Devi, I used broken English, Sanskrit, Malayalam and Hindi, profusely using the two English words 'yes' and 'no'. And if that didn't help, I used hand gestures to communicate with her. Madhava Warrier and I were curious to know the content of the English newspaper reports about our performance in the Opera House on December 12th and hence we requested Ragini Devi to read these reports to us. She read it out. But we understood only a few words.

How did the audience react to your performances?

On Dec 13th, we repeated our Opera House programme. We had more audience on the13th than the previous day. The audience cheered and clapped enthusiastically after each and every scene. The newspapers next day praised our performance.

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Moving requiem to Kapila Vatsyayan - the only guru of her kind - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Sponsored and premiered by the Sangeet Natak Akademi as homage, on the death anniversary of the inimitable scholar late Dr. Kapila Vatsyayan, was a virtual presentation, curated and presented by one who remained her lifelong student - namely Navina Jafa. A uniquely simple assembling of researched information, followed by an imaginatively designed collective tribute with scholars and artistes from different areas participating, Kathak Dance - New Perspectives of History Supervision and Hindol Darshan, were both reworked virtual packages of Navina's earlier live lec/dem presentations. Arguably the most persistent among myriads of aspirants functioning under Kapilaji's baton, Navina Jafa is perhaps the only one to have earned her doctorate, guided by one she refers to, as "India's first woman rishi" - widely acknowledged as an exacting and daunting teacher (though she herself refused to acknowledge that she was a guru with shishyas.).

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Unmute - It's been a year - Dr. Arshiya Sethi

This month, the Unmute series looks at the trajectory of a very important Sexual Harassment allegation that completed a year this month and looks at elements of law and protections available to the artistes.

The month of September marked a year since the sexual harassment allegations against the Dhrupad musicians - singers Umakant Gundecha and the late Ramakant Gundecha, and percussionist Akhilesh Gundecha. Renowned classical musicians, Ramakant and Umakant received the Padmashri in 2012 and the Sangeet Natak Akademi award in 2017. They ran a residential music Gurukul, just outside of Bhopal, called Dhrupad Sansthan, that had both Indian and foreign disciples living and learning there.

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Interview - Dancer with a Midas touch - Jyothi Raghuram

 

Teaching dance is a main source of livelihood even to those among the younger generation. More than a year and half into the pandemic, there is sense of optimism that all will be well shortly. Performing spaces are slowly opening up. Dance did not go into oblivion during those trying times. There was also an overkill.

The series looks at how dancers and teachers kept their morale and their art flying high, in different ways. The series begins with an interview of Sathyanarayana Raju, the Bengaluru based Bharatanatyam dancer.

His life as a dancer was a struggle. Yet he wondered how he could use his art for philanthropy. This was ambition in reverse mode! It took him nearly two decades to establish himself as a soloist of merit, but what a presence he made eventually! His abhinaya evoked deep emotional response in the audience, grace marked his masculine nritta, his creative forays made history as significant works of art.

One celebrated male dancer who has undoubtedly been propelled into stardom is Sathyanarayana Raju. One can imbibe substantially from a composite art such as dance. Sathya has grasped much, right from hisstunningdress sense to a traditionally decorated home splashed with greenery all around, to warmth and hospitality and a sense of gratefulness that has uplifted many a life.

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Anita says...October 2021

 The Goddess does not enter from the outside

SHE emerges from deep within
SHE is not held back by what has happened in the past
SHE is conceived in consciousness
- Sri Aurobindo


And so... we are on our way back
Like a winding spiral
To a new place that feels like
A beginning
All over again

Travel... Meeting a friend... a cautious embrace… muted laughter…
The energy is in the air...
The streets are clogged with revenge shopping.
Stores are welcoming clients after a crippling hiatus
Weddings, anniversaries, birthdays - are all being planned with greater vigour.
It's the festival season... but any excuse is enough to get out and breathe!

So...
What about us dancers???

The fortunate ones have already performed to live audiences, savouring the applause and the perspiration - free from the tiny gleam of that digital device and the claustrophobic mask.

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Interview - Aditi Mangaldas: COVID has forced us to re-skill ourselves - Shveta Arora

February 2020 was the month when the news of the corona virus in India started trickling in. And in March 2020, India, and much of the rest of the world, went into a state of lockdown. Since then, we have had more lockdowns, new mutations, new spikes in numbers, persisting symptoms, tragic deaths and all hell breaking loose during a devastating 'second wave'. This cruel pandemic has wiped out many, many young, productive lives and destroyed the confidence of many.

But in these dark times too, for an artist, the period of limbo became the time to introspect, to create and to perform just for oneself, view it oneself and then to review it oneself. Many artists and dancers have used technology to create some amazing works of art in Instagram and Facebook videos, stories and reels, live interactions and performances, recorded performances, films etc. - various forms of showcasing their work. If the corporates learnt to work from home, so did the artists. So we thought we would start talking to dancers about how they see the future for themselves and for the performing arts. Aditi Mangaldas shares her thoughts.

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Interview - An imaginary interview with Guru Gopinath - Part 1 - Tapati Chowdhurie

In my days of innocence I did not fully comprehend the greatness of my guru. Realization came to me as I matured. Guruji had prepared me to be a lover of the aesthetics of dance. I realized it more fully when I started writing on dance. I regret that as a writer on dance I had not taken his interview before he left his mortal body on October 9, 1987. I had missed the bus. However I took the help of his autobiography in Malayalam to get an insight into the making of a guru.

Babita Nair helped me with the English translation, which I have used in my imaginary interview of my Guru-Master.


Master, under what circumstances did you meet the American born dancer Esther Luella Sherman - known as Ragini Devi?
While I was a trainee in Kalamandalam, during the first week of October 1931, a woman from America, the famous dancer Ragini Devi arrived with Art writer G Venkitachalam. At that time, Guru Kunju Kurupp Asan was teaching mukha abhinayam (facial expressions) to us - i.e myself, Madhavan, Sivaraman, Kelu Nair, Krishnan Nair etc. According to the instructions of Mukundaraja, each of us performed one of the Navarasas for Ragini Devi and Venkitachalam. I performed sringaram and roudram rasas. Once the Navarasa abhinaya was over, Ragini Devi enquired from Mukundaraja about my age and my practise period; he translated her question in Malayalam for me. I had just crossed 23 with 11 years of training (both in the Northern and Southern style) of Kathakali.

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How Gita Govinda colored my life - The Eastern Eye: Column by Dr.Utpal K Banerjee

While, fully charged, I was pressing ahead with a three language version of Tagore's 300 songs --under individual titles of Mystic Songs of Tagore; Romantic Songs of Tagore and Patriotic Songs of Tagore with a hundred songs in each volume (for Abhinav Publications) - some dancer-friends came over to ask me why didn't I do a similar English poetry version of Jayadeva's Gita Govinda? When I looked back at them quizzically, they explained that while they frequently interpreted Jayadeva's Ashtapadis in their individual classical dance forms, they had invariably to fall back upon the English prose translations of Gorge Keyt and others for gleaning the meaning of the original Sanskrit poetic text. A convenient rhymed verse translation of Gita Govinda would do them a world of good! Convinced, I began looking at Jayadeva, when I was hooked -- for the rest of my life - with his profusion and command over Mandakranta rhyming scheme!

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West Zone Cultural Centre presents online Malhar Festival - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

A celebratory festival marking seventy five years of India's 'Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav,' the four day virtual event Malhar organised by the WZCC at Udaipur, under the Cultural Affairs Ministry, began with a Kathakali performance pertaining to the traditional repertoire - which, for this critic, represents the best expression of this country's freedom - without having to be shackled to any special patriotic theme.

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Evolution of Kathak in post independent India - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Referred to as the 'Maha Kumbha' of Kathak, Sangeet Natak Akademi's marathon fifteen day festival conducted under the auspices of the Kathak Kendra, featuring interviews with art scholars and celebrated artists alongside lec/dem sessions and performances, was one of its kind - even while some of the choices in selection and those left out of the reckoning, may have caused mixed feelings. This concept of the Kathak Kendra Director Suman Kumar, curated by Subhash Chandra, running in tandem with the celebration of seventy five years of India's Independence, was titled 'Vande Maataram', (Bankim Chandra Chatopadhyay's composition based on the rich iconography in the country, saluting 'Mother India'). While many participants expressed the appropriateness of the title at this point in our history, a few others voiced the opinion that something less 'political and declamatory' would have been better. Clarified in the timetable of events as "diverse expressions in Kathak", what finally emerged in the mixed event largely stressed individual journeys in Kathak, with fleeting moments, when thinking minds communicated the message that arts cannot live in cuckoo land, cut off from the concerns of a nation.

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Obit/Tribute - K Subash Chandran - Vijay Shanker

Mumbai's leading cultural personality and former program director of National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), K Subash Chandran, left for his heavenly abode on July 21, 2021 in Mumbai. He was 90 and is survived by his wife, daughter Thulasi, son-in-law and two grandchildren. He was suffering from Parkinson's disease and other medical issues and was bedridden for eight months.

Hailing from Kerala, K Subash Chandran had a distinguished career, serving the government and private sector as well. He was private secretary to the former Prime Minister, Jawaharlal Nehru and also the private secretary to Indira Gandhi, when she was the minister for Information and Broadcasting. Subash was also a close associate of former defense minister VK Krishna Menon. 

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Anita says...September 2021

 "It's time to put our paranoia about the virus on a leash and take it for a walk."

- Shared over a telephone call with Madhu Nataraj

The festival season is upon us and with it come several moments to smile as we all attempt to open up our homes and lives to the outside world.

Now that the imprint of baby feet have been drawn in the courtyards and altars of several homes across the world to mark the birth day of Lord Krishna, we can prepare for the arrival of beloved Ganesha and onwards to more and more days that will remind us of the importance of ritual and the cyclical spiral of life. No matter which faith one belongs to, the onset of cooler weather and the sun's winter descent always signals more celebrations, prayers and gatherings. Despite the threat of a third wave, people seem determined to find ways to share experiences and the small joys of life.

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