Roving Eye - September 2023

 

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Article - Mayurbhanj Chhau - Bharat Sharma

Within the battle-lines drawn around the geographical contours and 'ancientness' of dance 'styles' animating the performing arts scenario in last several decades in India, one 'style' that has been on the margins is Mayurbhanj Chhau. My love for this art form grew from the fascination my father inculcated in me from the beginning of my career.

Amongst the memorabilia Baba left behind for me to dwell upon is the key Marg issue (volume 22, number 1) of 1968 printed from Mumbai that was gifted to me once I started learning Mayurbhanj Chhau seriously in 1976 in Delhi. This volume, which has not got critical attention yet, was obviously a milestone of its time, and remained a benchmark for scholars and students of Chhau style for long. The cover page, with a picture of two dancers from Seraikella Chhau, begins with an emotive editorial by progressive writer Mulk Raj Anand (founder-editor) by placing Chhau as a 'subaltern' amongst dance styles. Thereupon, there are articles by Sunil Kothari on Seraikella Chhau, and by Jiwan Pani on Mayurbhanj Chhau. In each case, there are photographs of two sleek male bodies demonstrating respective techniques - Kedar Nath Sahu for Seraikella and Krishna Chandra Naik for Mayurbhanj. These were perhaps the earliest writings on Chhau in a recognized 'national' art magazine. 

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Odissi of two vintages - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Odissi in the Guru Kelucharan style and in the Debaprasad style happened to be, coincidentally, presented in two performances during the fortnight at two different venues in Delhi - one in a solo representation by one of the most venerated dancers of the form, while the other in a group presentation, where space was shared, with other dance forms also being part of the evening. Neither evening, one at the Kamani and the other at the Habitat, sadly could boast of handsome turnouts.

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Tribute - Delhi's pioneer institution builder for Bharatanatyam passes away - Leela Venkataraman

Pioneer in the setting up of an institution for propagating Bharatanatyam in the capital, the founder of Ganesa Natyalaya, Dr. Saroja Vaidyanathan, is no more. The institution initiated in 1972 in Patna where she resided with her bureaucrat husband, was shifted to Delhi in 1974, with Mr.Vaidyanathan being posted to the capital. While the school at first functioned from a modest place, with the help of sponsors and well-wishers who were many, thanks to the fund of goodwill earned by both Saroja and her husband, it was in 1988 that the new building was set up in Delhi's Institutional Area. As an inevitably significant presence in the capital's dance scenario, since the 1970s, Saroja Vaidyanathan's absence is going to be sorely felt. And she will be deeply mourned by all her students, spread in different parts of the country and abroad. 

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Obit/Tribute - Saroja Vaidyanathan (1937-2023) Ashish Mohan Khokar

Delhi-based senior active guru Saroja Vaidyanathan is no more. Born in Bellary on 19 Sept, 1937, she passed away just a day after her 86th birthday, on 21st September 2023 in the wee hours of the morning, in her sleep, after a prolonged illness.

Saroja Vaidyanathan learnt Bharatanatyam from vidwan Kattumannar Muthukumaran Pillai's ace disciple in Chennai those days named K. Lalitha (Sastry) in Triplicane. Hers was a school (Saraswathy Gana Nilayam) where for five rupees (those days; today 5k!) one could learn any art form, mridangam or violin or dance. It is to Saroja Vaidyanathan's credit she mastered a form and after marriage to an IAS officer of Bihar cadre - where there was no eco system for fine arts, that too southern forms like BN - that she made it a point to propagate it and promote Bharatanatyam in Bihar in the 1960s and 1970s. She told me once, "Ashish, it was so difficult to even explain who Andal was sitting in a pandal. There was hardly any hall with proper stage in a state which was then backward."

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Tribute - Rukmini Rasiah of Yogaville: Iron lady with a flower heart - The Dhananjayans

 

Rukmini Rasiah, affectionately addressed by all of us as 'Amma Rasiah' was a colossus of a dynamic personality. Short but gigantic intellectual with sharp crystal clear convictions of a rare quality. A woman of substance, she lived up to 105, a phenomenal achievement indeed for a Srilankan repatriate in the USA.

(Rukmini Rasiah passed away on 27 August 2023, at the age of 105 at her daughter Padma Rasiah's residence in Richmond, USA)

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Kathak in varied manifestations - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

It was a couple of weeks of Kathak and more of it in the capital! But contrary to the 'appetite getting sickened and dying' (to use Shakespeare's phrase from Twelfth Night) unexpectedly handsome turnouts for each event proved how new ideas have the power to stir jaded audience curiosity. The credit goes to young people, who, in a field so wedded to 'Khandaani' heritage, have boldly tethered Kathak grammar and body language to hitherto unexplored themes.

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Interview - Arunima Ghosh: Srishti's always happy on stage - Shveta Arora

Srishti Debroy is a promising young Odissi dancer who performed her manchapravesh in 2022. She is a prodigy because she did that at the tender age of nine years! She is the daughter of Delhi-based Odissi dancer and teacher Arunima Ghosh and photographer Sanjit Debroy. Arunima has learnt Odissi under gurus like Monalisa Ghosh and Sharon Lowen and also teaches Odissi in NCR, which is how Srishti has been watching Odissi since she was four months old.

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Laudable attempts at recapturing flavours of Vedic women and their wisdom - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Supported by the Ministry of Culture, as part of Azadi ka Amrit Mahotsav celebrations, the Koochipoodi Dance Centre of Swapnasundari presented Brahmavadini-Vedic Women of Wisdom at the C.S.O.I auditorium, Delhi, in what must be regarded as one of the rarest of programs. Researched, visualized and directed by Swapnasundari, the performances over two successive evenings, brought glimpses of six Brahmavadinis of the Vedic period - Maitreyi, Ghosha, Romasha, Lopamudra, Apala and Gargi - by reputed dancers each representing a different tradition of dance, covering in the process six dance forms.

Suman Sanjay Agarwal, the compere, in her succinct introduction summed up the state of women in the Vedic era. Equal to the sons in every way, daughters too went through the coming of age upanayanam (thread ceremony), and had full authority for reading the Sastras and participating in Vedic rituals. Women were allowed to partake of soma rasa and considered Dharma Rakshaks along with men - to the extent of participating in battles as soldiers - thus sharing in every activity man was part of. If anything, woman's position in our society today would seem to suggest regression rather than progress.

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Anita says...September 2023

 "Do not follow where the path may lead. Go instead where there is no path and leave a trail".

- Ralph Waldo Emerson


Photo: Sangeeta Banerjee/Oneframestory

#ON AND OVER THE MOON
It was a moment that united all Indians globally. The August 23rd touchdown of Chandrayaan-3 on the moon's southern surface. All differences were put aside to cheer our scientists. And then the debate began. What will that point be named? The first moon mission that crash landed on November 14, 2001 was called JAWAHAR STHAL (point), to honour India's first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Should this point be named after Dr Vikram Sarabhai or President Abdul Kalam? Suggestions came thick and fast on social media until we were told that it was going to be called TIRANGA (Tricolour) POINT and SHIV-SHAKTI POINT!

Dancer Mallika Sarabhai, daughter of the iconic scientist and father of India's space programme Dr Vikram Sarabhai, had a long post on Facebook about the origin of the space programme INCOSPAR and her father's pivotal role in spurring attention and resources towards India's space research. "For those interested, I am recording history rather than fairy tales," she says, taking a self-deprecating dig at the recurring Radha Krishna mythological tropes!

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