Tribute - A tribute to Kamala on her 90th birthday on 16th June 2024 - Gayathri Keshavan

Kamala and Bharatanatyam are inseparable words right from the year 1940, spanning the dance world for many decades. She was popular as Baby Kamala…later as Kumari Kamala, then famous as Kamala Lakshman….thereafter Smt. Kamala. During my childhood days and as I grew up to be a young dancer, my role model for admiration and inspiration was Kamala, the enchanting dancer. 

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18 Days... - Dance Matters: Column by Ashish Mohan Khokar

'18 Days' is about the war as described in the Mahabharata, one of the two important epics of India. It pertains to the symbolic end of rule by devatas and start of world run by men. It is about statecraft, politics, betrayal, avarice, kingdoms, relationships and more. For Hindus, it also is foundational ethics for life through karma and dharma. 

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Profile - Father Saju George's Kalahrdaya - Tapati Chowdhurie

The headlines in The Telegraph newspaper about Father Saju George (SJ) was 'DANCE, BROTHER SAJU GEORGE, DANCE.'

Father George is a phenomenon - a self-made man who is both passionate about dance and about joining the Jesuit order. In his Ted Talks he said that he was excited to speak about his dance which is a vocation within a vocation. Life is worth living, he said, if you have a goal.

In his teens he happened to read the book titled 'Life is Worth Living' by American author, bishop Fulton John Sheen and it gripped him. It helped him to be focused and make his life worth living for himself and the world. Born into a Syrian Catholic family in a small village called Santhipuram in Kottayam District in Kerala, to a family of 10 children, he was interested in Indian classical dance from childhood. 

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Showcasing Odissi and deliberating on its generational changes - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

The two day Omkara Festival at the IIC premises organised by Manasa-Art Without Frontiers (with focus on Seraikella Chhau and Odissi), during its animated seminar discussion, moderated competently by Sharon Lowen, put the searchlight on Parivartan, the very pertinent issue of generational changes. This has been an important concern for all traditions with roots in a deep cultural past, as they transit through time. How does an intangible cultural heritage, travelling out of its region to spaces all over the world, deal with the challenges of having to deal with practitioners from different language and religious backgrounds, while creating lebensraum for itself amidst the imperatives of catering to different cultural sensibilities?

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A delightful week of Kabir, Bharatanatyam and Swarna Saroja - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Choreographed by Ridhima Bagga, Utsav 2024 presented by students of Gauri Diwakar Sanskriti Foundation at the Shri Ram Centre, Delhi was a poetic delight. Sant Kabir's Dohas, Ramainis, Kaharvas and Shabads with their mystic underpinnings, make excellent material for Kathak dance given the dance's penchant for abstraction.....

It was IIC's Double Bill Concert, giving Delhi audiences a first exposure to Bharatanatyam by Ramya Suresh. The dancer epitomized, aside from the considerable talent, the advantages of a home background, wherein music and dance are a way of life.... 

As Ganesa Natyalaya, the largest institution for Bharatanatyam in the capital, observes its diamond Jubilee of just over fifty years of serving dance, amidst the poignant absence of its founder Saroja Vaidyanathan, presiding over the destiny of the institution for years. In a seamless natural handover of reins to the family members, the work of the institution has not suffered.... 

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Home truths in Abhadra of societal snobbery - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Two factors prompted my visit to the Habitat - one to watch Bharatanatyam by a male disciple of Saroja Vaidyanathan (when I had associated male dancers in the Natyalaya as a recent phenomenon with Rama Vaidyanathan's male students), and the other that the dance was being rendered to Bhojpuri songs!

After experiencing dancer Vinay Tiwari's creation and listening to the warm response of the audience, my first unvoiced thought was that Saroja Vaidyanathan would have been supremely happy to see the rewards of her labour. As gold medalist from Bhatkhande University, with a Nritya Nipuna title from Nalanda Dance School, plus a graded Doordarshan artiste, Vinay Tiwari has more than proved his dance credentials. With a senior diploma in Folk Dance and Masters in Sociology and Bharatanatyam, he is at present, as dance teacher in Prometheas Noida School, engaged in teaching folk forms and also Bharatanatyam to new learners. After 3pm, he is engaged at the Natyalaya working and learning (now a student of Rama Vaidyanathan) et al.

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Article - Alice beyond the Victorian Era - Dyumna Chhabra

Over the years of reading English literature, if there’s one genre I tend to run away from, it is the classics, and I try to gravitate towards literatures that seek to be “Windows on the World” (Damrosch, 2003). ‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ is the epitome of classics from the Victorian era and probably a book I would not have picked up myself had it not been for the show. I am glad to say that reading the book turned out to be a good decision!

‘Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland’ by Lewis Carroll is an exemplary work that reaches out to young children whose curiosity and imagination have led them down the rabbit holes of dreams.  

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Book Review - Unique book on Saivism - Vijay Shanker

'Ananda Siva Natanam: The blissful dance of Siva' by Dr Geeta Radhakrishna is a unique book on Saivism (the cult of Siva). Siva forms the trinity of Hindu mythology, along with Lord Brahma and Lord Vishnu. The book is dedicated to Siva Shakti - the divine energy of Siva and Parvata Nandini, the daughter of the mountain king Himavan, divine mother of this world. 

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Prism - History of Evolution of Odissi Dance after Independence - Dr. Ileana Citaristi

ODIA THEATRE

The emergence of the Odia theatre scene in the early forties marked the end of the different forms of rasleelas or musical plays as forms of independent representations and they became part of the repertoire of theatre groups along with other plays based on modern or mythological subjects. Many of the artistes who were involved in the leelas shifted to the newly opened theatre groups so that a certain continuation in the tradition could be maintained and the more popular libretto of the leelas continued to be represented even if in a more secular environment. One of the earliest theatre groups which opened at Cuttack in 1918, was the Radha Krishna Theatre followed by others like Hajuri Theatre at Puri, New Theatre of Odisha at Baripada, Odisha Theatres at Cuttack, Bhagwati Theatres at Banapur on the Chilka Lake and the three Annapurna Theatres opened by the same proprietors-Somnath Das at Puri, Annapurna A, Cuttack, Annapurna B and Berhampur, Annapurna C.

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Anita says...June 2024

Your time is limited,
So don't waste it by living someone else's life.
Don't be trapped by dogma-
Which is living with the results of other peoples thinking!
- Steve Jobs
Tech pioneer

In the end,
We'll all become stories
- Margaret Atwood
Writer

Having not danced, watched any performance or engaged with anyone connected with dance for a full month is a rarity for me. But it was a conscious decision. I needed to disconnect and distance myself for some time to be able to refocus and perhaps, even float. I wanted to enjoy a rhythm where there were no deadlines, no rehearsals, no performance related duties and no compulsions to finish or complete any project. A real privilege, I know, but something that was long overdue.

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