MK & M.K. - Dance Matters: Column by Ashish Mohan Khokar

Mohanrao K for Kallianpurkar - a lesser known strapping man of Kathak, on whom a well-researched book by Guru Shama Bhate and arts activist Arshiya Sethi has just been published by Sterling. He strode tall, figuratively, artistically and literally. Student of Shama tai and polyglot, Shilpa Bhide has strung the tale together, ably. The book is a delight for dance buffs, especially Kathak ones.

Art is beyond borders or caste. First be an artiste (all through the book artist without an e ending has been used, again very American, because by convention one uses artist for fine arts and with an e at end, for performing) than be anything else. That's what my mother M.K. Saroja taught me. Having just lost her 2 weeks ago (June 13), I was not up to writing any column but this one is 20 years old (my association with narthaki, through various avatars/ columns) and one lesson mother leaves us with is: WORK IS WORSHIP. Jo kaam liya woh pura karo -Professional commitment.

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Interview - An imaginary interview with Guru Gopinath - Part 12 - Tapati Chowdhurie

Guru Gopinath with Maya Rao

Guruji, please tell us about what happened after your program in Tashkent.

The night after the Tashkent program we were given a grand dinner which lasted till 3am. We had a flight at 4am which unfortunately was delayed to 7am. I covered myself with my overcoat and dozed off in my chair only to be woken up to the sound of Thappu melam (musical instrument) accompanying the dance of two girls arranged to entertain us. Seeing me asleep, the dancers started singing and dancing loudly close to my ears to wake me up. Though I woke up, I sat like Vishwamitra with my eyes closed and hands locked. Even after I sat there for 25 minutes in that position, the two beauties continued dancing in front of me. It was something like the meeting between Vishwamitra and Menaka, where Vishwamitra was attracted to Menaka. Considering my age, the beauty of the dancers and the cold weather, I did not want to miss the opportunity of dancing with them. The airport employees and the people sitting there appreciated our dance and clapped to encourage us. We stopped dancing at 6.30am and called it a day. They said they liked dancing with me and I thanked them for it. At 7am, we wished them good cheer and boarded our flight.

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Slick Kathak expression of an Unprecedented Awakening - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

 Watching on video the latest solo presentation of Kathak dancer Sudip Chakraborty, one is made aware of the fact that the blanket fog over dance performances during the pandemic, resulting in a feel of total hopelessness, had its redeeming side too. The forced quietude with the absence of showmanship and performance glamour, made many dancers delve inwards to ponder and meditate on their inner self, always elusive in tactility - questioning one's relationship with the universe and with the art form one represented. Can dance give that sense of wholeness, regenerating the human spirit?

Trained under Gurus Pranab Sanyal and Sandip Mallick based in Kolkata, dancer Sudip Chakraborty, given his arresting stage presence and well held erect body, dances with faultless ang, revealing an involvement in every moment - rhythmic or interpretative. In Unprecedented, leaving aside the degree of conviction in the dance statement, one is struck by the fact that a youngster is not afraid to experiment with themes which do not have, in the classical repertoire, readymade prescriptions for presentation. One is also struck by the painstaking attention paid to creating the libretto with musical foundation–not least of it being a team of competent musicians, Jaydeep Sinha (vocal), Aman Ali Khan (tabla), Salman Warsi (pakhawaj), Azeem Ali (sarangi), Salim Viswamitra (sitar), and Seedartha Awakunj Bhattacharjee (bol padhant).

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Guru M.K. Saroja (April 7, 1931 - June 13, 2022)

Veteran guru of Bharatanatyam, M.K.Saroja Khokar passed away peacefully on June 13, 2022 at home in Bangalore. No struggle, no hospitalization. She was 92 this year and was a benchmark in Bharatanatyam of Vidwan Muthukumaran Pillai bani of Kattumunarkoil. While Ram Gopal, her mentor, Rukmini Devi her patron and Mrinalini Shatabhai too learnt from the same guru, only Saroja learnt exclusively from Thatha as Muthukumaran Pillai was called.

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Interview - Himanshu Shrivastava: As a dancer I am an explorer, a seeker - Shveta Arora

Himanshu Shrivastava is a young Bharatanatyam dancer whom I have been watching with increasing respect and admiration over the years. He is a disciple of gurus Saroja Vaidyanathan, Rama Vaidyanathan and Kamalini Dutt. He is also a Sanskrit scholar and an established painter and artist. His own choreographies, like 'Shikhandi', have been thought provoking as well as technically mature and masterfully danced. During the pandemic, I have seen two short videos of his - 'Radhika' (for Anita Ratnam's Devi Diaries) and 'Baazi' - which surprised me with their made-for-camera ethos and their camera work, locations etc, standing out for their conceptual depth, visual richness and technical skill in just a few minutes, even in an overcrowded online dance video space. I thus spoke to Himanshu about being a dancer 'online' during these two years of Covid-19 lockdowns and restrictions.

Choreographing for stage and then adapting to video vs. choreographing innately for the camera...
In the pandemic, everything is new for everyone, of course. But somewhere, I could sense that now the breadth of my audience has contracted to one little hole in the camera lens-not a huge auditorium but one pinpoint. In dance, especially nritta, and especially the adavus, are always audience-centric. We make sure the profile is right from each side-a dancer has to be very careful about profile projection and the visibility of that makes a lot of difference. Thrown in this situation suddenly, I immediately understood that now I have to choreograph according to the camera. And here the only privilege, I felt, was-and it took me a little time to get this, obviously-I realized the camera can also act as the amphitheatre by going around you. So we need to discover this new technology, the lens of the new audience, in a different way. Initially, I started with a fixed camera and later started moving it. Obviously, I ruminated upon how a movie is made, the intricacies of movie making in the context of how to do choreography.

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Article - Making music for dance accessible - Divya Ravi

European countries are peppered with arts organizations that associate with a handful of artistes for mutual growth and support. The organization supports the creative pursuits of the artiste (oft addressed as 'Resident Artiste') in a holistic manner, and the artiste reciprocates by working with the 'Home Organization' in myriad capacities.

If one were to look for a parallel in India, the dart lands straight in an alley in the quaint locality of Malleshwaram. Bengaluru based organization Ananya has been the 'Home Organization' to many a 'Resident Artiste', birthing innumerable artistic endeavours over the years. Everyone associated with Ananya, finds a home here, developing their artistic pursuits and spearheading various projects -in the basement studio or over a tea-time conversation in the home of Dr. R.V. Raghavendra and Dr. Pramila Bai, the masterminds behind Ananya.

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Evolution of dance - over aeons, everywhere - The Eastern Eye: Column by Dr.Utpal K Banerjee

Dance 360 Degrees: Sarvatra Nritya, an ambitious programme, presented by Mahagami University, Performing Arts Department, on the World Dace Day (April 29), offers a unique comprehensive vision into the origin of dance. Conceived and directed by their gifted Dean, Parwati Dutta

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Anita says...June 2022

 Are we already at the half way mark of the year?

We are just getting the hang of readjusting to a post-Covid world. The murmurs of yet another wave looming is not a dampener for the majority who are travelling and vacationing with a vengeance.

In New York City, where I visited for a brief 7 days, masks were off but theatres were still asking for Vaccination proof as well as masking up indoors. The streets, bars, stores, cinema halls, Broadway theatres, ballet and opera houses and auditoriums were completely packed with tourists and many Americans who were travelling to the Big Apple after two years. It was lovely to feel the electric vibe of this city pumping again.

June is PRIDE MONTH and yet another opportunity for each of us in the creative industries to stop and take a look at our own lives and to examine how inclusive we have been over the past two years. I think of all those non binary artistes - some of whom are lucky to have found their soul mates and others who are still struggling for visibility and connections. As an ally, all I can say is "I see you. I hear you."

As if on cue, the Pakistani Trans drama JOYLAND won the QUEER PALM awards at the Cannes Film Festival. Directed by Salim Sadiq, the film tells the story of a son of a patriarchal family who is expected to marry and produce a child. Instead, he joins an erotic dance theatre company and falls for the troupe's director, a trans woman.

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