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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