Tuesday, 24 May 2022

Book Review - Reclaiming historic contribution of Kathak paviour - Leela Venkataraman

Non-Gharanedaar Pt Mohanrao Kallianpurkar: The Paviour of Kathak
Authors: Shama Bhate, Arshiya Sethi, Shilpa Bhide
Price: Rs.495
Published by: Sterling
Pages: 200

The book rightly calls Mohanrao the 'Kathak Paviour' - his combined academic and practical (
sastra / prayog) knowledge enabling the kind of research to pave the Kathak pathway so to speak, by establishing the links between practice and theory as mentioned in the old texts. This also enabled him to devise a curriculum for teaching and with it a performance format - with a clear sequence of items paving the way for a more structured approach to performance, while keeping in mind the spaces a form like Kathak needs for improvisations, the soul of the dance. What was left till now to the arbitrariness of individual gurus, with this crucial ground work, helped standardise teaching also. 

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1 comment:

  1. Sounds fantastic! Thank you for your detailed review. Kudos to the three authors for their collaborative oeuvre! Mohan-maam was my beloved uncle and greatly admired and respected by all in our family and the community. As did so many artists and professionals in the music and dance fields. He was a master of rhythm and had composed superb pieces especially for dance and sounded almost musical
    A must buy!! Gautam Sirur
    gautam.sirur@gmail.com

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