Obit/Tribute - Pasumarthy Keshava Prasad: Tribute to a traditional master-performer - Vijay Shanker

Veteran Kuchipudi exponent, performer ,mentor, promoter and organiser Pasumarthy Keshava Prasad left for his heavenly abode on 7th May 2021 at his hometown in Kuchipudi village, Andhra Pradesh. He leaves behind his family, sons and a daughter. He was 69.

Born on 1st August1952, Keshava belonged to a traditional family of dancers and musicians, following the Bhagavata Mela tradition. His grandfather Vedantam Ramakrishna Sastry was particularly acclaimed for his role of Raja Harishchandra and his father Subramanya Sastry specialised in the portrayal of feminine characters. The legacy moves forward with his children; one of them plays the mridangam too.

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Back to the roots in Nupur Zankar’s marathon Sanskriti Mahotsav on Kathak Gharanas - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Watching the nine day virtual Sanskriti Mahotsav curated by Shila Mehta for her organisation Nupur Zankar on Kathak Gharanas, could well have made many wonder ‘why again get stuck in the gharana zone, instead of moving ahead to something of relevance today?’ But dedicated to Birju Maharaj, the reigning czar of Kathak, and his shishya the Late Guru Pandit Vijay Shankar (who the Maharaj affectionately called his Gopi) and to the recently departed   scholar/critic Sunil Kothari, this entire enterprise, as explained by the curator, was to make use of this period stripped of the performance fever, to go back, ponder and have a quiet relook at one’s roots, for as Shila very pertinently remarked, “Deeper the roots, taller the shoots.” Tradition survives by accommodating the present and hence while accepting the constancy of change, the need to reassure oneself of being deeply rooted.

In what was a painstakingly ambitious enterprise involving gurus of all gharanas, performers pertaining to three generations, providing space for what went as interactions, the flawless organisational finesse had to be lauded. Neatly put together, this set of video material would make an excellent Kathak information tool for the dancer seeking answers to several queries in the mind. The painstaking manner in which the genealogy tree tracing the lineage of each gharana has been tabled makes for good historical reference. The best part of the entire effort was its non-judgemental approach, allowing performances to speak for themselves.

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Obit/Tribute - B Bhanumati: Her art reflected her beauty - Jyothi Raghuram

"Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, beautiful old people are works of art"; in no aspect of her art or personality was Guru B. Bhanumati old. Sparkling with childlike enthusiasm, reflected enchantingly in her eyes, lively and spirited, she pioneered many firsts in classical dance. From the Eighties onwards, she quietly and unknowingly created a revolution in the dance field, bringing down the artificial walls around dancers and dance institutions.

Perhaps even the dance world has not comprehended this, so unobtrusive was her world, so low profile was she. Her Bharatanatyam dance school, Nrityakalamandiram, was not out of the ordinary at the surface level. Students milled her class as much for her warmth as for her ability to bring out the best in them. At Nrityakalamandiram, there was no pause, leave alone a full stop. Each ward of Bhanumati took back something precious with them. Even if dance is not for all, either to perform or teach, she groomed every student to be a dancer worthy of her dance school - a reputation that withstood the tectonic shifts in digital technology, taste, and the re-configurations of the very purpose of dance.

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Obit/Tribute - Lover of arts K.D. Chandran is no more - Vijay Shanker

 

One of the leading social and cultural personalities of Mumbai, K. Doraiswamy Chandran, left for his heavenly abode on 16th May 2021, due to cardiac arrest. Chandran was admitted at the Criti Care Hospital in Juhu, Mumbai, on 12 May due to kidney ailments, which further led to his cardiac arrest. He was 84 and his survived by his daughter, Bharatanatyam dancer and actress Sudha Chandran and son-in-law Ravi.

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Obit/Tribute - Bharat Dave carved a niche for himself in theatre - Dr. S.D. Desai

Veteran theatre director Bharat Dave (1948-2021) was a multi-talented person, so unassumingly close to all of us that we never realized he had these talents. Even when in ICU, he did not let us think he was on his death bed. He picked up the smart phone lying by his side the other day and texted in the group his daughter Devaki had thoughtfully formed for his friends and on having briefly described his condition, he mentioned "many shows yet to be held and many books in the pipeline."

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Chakshu - Dance from the perspective of the camera - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Looked at from any perspective, the three day virtual festival Chakshu jointly organised by Kalpataru Arts and Kri Foundation, featuring dance viewed from the perspective of the camera lens, was a clear winner not only in terms of the varied range of viewership it attracted from various parts of the world, but also for its animated, highly informative and educative post-film screening discussions involving the best of film makers, scholars, performers and above all, young enthusiasts making a foray into this hitherto unexplored territory. This event conceived by Sangita Chatterjee (whose organisation Kalpataru Arts since its inception in 2013, has promoted various events mostly connected with Kathak, her medium), a lately committed convert to this field of Dance through the Camera, in collaborating with Kri Foundation, had the advantage of a person like Arshiya Sethi, Founder Managing Trustee of the Foundation to moderate the discussions. Arshiya's Danzlenz vertical events over the last two decades have made her an acknowledged world promoter of dance viewed through the camera lens.

The handsome Indian participation in this festival was particularly heartening, for it threw up a people who till now, held captive by traditionally oriented live performances, have been compelled by the widespread negativity stemming from Covid restrictions, to look at other opportunities the virtual world throws up. Rather than being judgemental, I admire the young minds in particular for not losing themselves in despondency.

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Remapping routes in a warped world - The Eastern Eye: Column by Dr.Utpal K Banerjee

Indian classical, folk and contemporary dances - in all their variegated forms - have always been seen live, offered to spectators physically present to enjoy in all their nuances and respond enthusiastically to their context and content, with both stories and gestures, in a 3-D perspective - on temple or court precincts or proscenium stages -- and in real time. If we could call these 'concert dances', there have, of course been occasions when the concert dances have been adjuncts to theatre shows and the celluloid, adding often fresh dimensions to their narrative structure and presentation style.

The current global pandemic has systematically proceeded not merely to endanger human life but completely disrupt and fracture the living communications and threatened all forms of human congregation as expression of culture, threaten the very essence of human civilization. The first thing that this catastrophe has done to Indian concert dance is to nearly rule out live performances with live viewers in attendance, and making dance's existence palpably dependent on analog/digital camera, offering 2-D viewing and usually without instant viewer response.

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Obit/Tribute - Jacques d'Amboise: Ballet Master Extraordinaire - V.P. Dhananjayan

Jacques d'Amboise, esteemed New York Ballet choreographer, passed away on May 2, 2021.

Jacques d'Amboise was an iconic Ballet dancer, acclaimed choreographer par excellence, a Ballet master with relentless energy who at the ripe age of 85-86 left a legacy by saying adieu to the world of classical dance. Jacques's life was an open book for the male dancers of the entire world starting with obscure beginnings and reaching Himalayan heights. Jacques reaching the top position in the Ballet world is providential. He was one of the sons of a lift operator residing in the Harlem area of New York (then considered as the slums of NY). His father, while attending to his duties, admitted his sons in a nearby Ballet class to while away their time, like a play school. His father would not have dreamt that one of his sons would become a celebrity in the performing art field, and that too in New York City - the cultural capital of the world. Destiny has its own course!!

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Article - All roads lead to dance - Samyukta Ninan

 

"Many people have said many things. I can only say I did not consciously go after dance. It found me."
- Rukmini Devi Arundale

There are not many moments in life when opportunities knock at your door. This I have discovered. But when they do, I should say embrace them and not let them go. About three years back, as an educator teaching history for nearly 11 years in a private school in Delhi, I believed that my relationship with my students was merely based on content transaction. Today I have completely changed this view, and that happened when dance found me.

Being a student of history, I attach a huge importance to the origin of everything. The past appeals to me much more than the present. And this has helped me immensely in understanding dance. 

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Obit/Tribute - Critic Bhanu Kumar is no more - Vijay Shanker

Mumbai based dance and music critic Bhanu Kumar left for her heavenly abode, early morning on 20th April 2021 leaving behind her retired engineer husband C.S. Kumar, son Kartik, daughter-in-law Purnima, dancer daughter Sukanya Kumar and grandchildren. She was 68 and was on a ventilator for a few days at the non-covid Jupiter Hospital in Thane. Bhanu was diabetic and was suffering from pneumonia as well.

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A triptych of femininity - The Eastern Eye: Column by Dr.Utpal K Banerjee

 

Sharmila Biswas, the acclaimed Odissi dancer of the eastern metropolis, has produced an engrossing study of the woman's psyche in her latest dance production. This is a portraiture of the feminine mood reimagining three stock approaches from Indian literature. The first is from a social viewpoint of a mother, who lets loose her offspring into the future, by gradually cutting the apron strings binding them together. The second one is a royal model where the Patta Mahishi (the reigning empress) has to fall back on her baffling situation with her trusted husband foisting a new consort on the royal household, unannounced and unsolicited. The third one is a mythic woman who has been a quintessential lover all her life and is simply unable to come to terms with the permanent separation of her mon amour.

Antaranga Festival, the online show organized on April 23 by Sangeet Natak Akademi, featured the three highly innovative items of Sharmila over around 46 minutes. Another fascinating aspect was their being placed in three time horizons; future, present and past, in the reverse order.

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Anita says...May 2021

 I cannot write

Of death tolls and fires
Of slow tsunamis
Of puzzlement and pandemic
Of street side funeral pyres

I can only paint
The riot of white hibiscus blooms
On the stoop
How you strain towards the sun
How you droop
Without water, how you wither
How you fall
How then you're on your own
How we'll all
Be the same in the end

DENIAL by Akhila Ramnarayan


India has descended into COVID HELL.

"I CANNOT BREATHE" has become the chant as gasping citizens collapse as our health care system is overwhelmed by the crisis.

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Roving Eye curated by Anita Ratnam - May 2021

 

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