Dance Department of North Carolina University at Charlotte in USA organized under the leadership of Assistant Professor, Odissi dancer Kaustavi Sarkar, an international dance conference titled 'Sensate Technicities, Dance Connecting Communities' in collaboration with Odissi International, and India Association of Charlotte from 3rd till 5th May 2019.From India, I was invited to participate. When I arrived on 2nd May, I came to learn that there was shooting on the campus and two students were killed. Not only that, there was another shooting in an apartment and one more person had died. The university campus was inaccessible, police had cordoned off the campus, and Kaustavi and her Head of the Dance Department were under great tension if the conference could take place or not under such circumstances.However, the situation was soon under control and the green signal given with revised schedule. On Friday the 3rd May in Robinson Hall in room number 330 South Asian Studies, there was an opening as some other program was cancelled. Kaustavi arranged my talk during the discussion of South Asian Aesthetics. Since I had the film on the legendary dancer Ram Gopal, it was decided to screen it as none of the dancers present and participating in conference had ever heard of him. The screening took all of them by surprise that besides Uday Shankar who had put Indian dance on the world map, Ram Gopal had with his solo performances put classical Bharatanatyam and Kathakali on the world map. Later on he had also choreographed The Legend of Taj, based on the historical story of Shahjahan and Mumtaz Mahal as a dance-drama at Edinburgh Dance Festival.
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Nava Pallava, the brainchild of Ashok Jain of Spic Macay deserves all encouragement, for it aims at providing performance opportunities to young artists, who apart from being outside the charmed performance circuit, are also exploited by so called impresarios providing platforms for a fee. With this money the organizer not only pays for the venue but also earns a percentage of profit for oneself. Senior artists like Sharmila Biswas in Kolkata, Aruna Mohanty and Ratikant Mohapatra in Bhubaneswar, Parwati Dutta in Aurangabad and some others have taken up the Nava Pallava cause in earnest with highly encouraging results. New Delhi's Sangeet Shyamala stepping in to help with an inaugural event mounted at its premises is all to the good. With trustee Chetna Jalan not in station, her sister, Vasundhara Tiwari, Principal of the institution, conducted the event. But the evening, as conceived had a few confused areas.
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Earlier, a guru decided when his or her ward - shishya - was ready for the stage to be presented to the society of peers, family and friends. Today, a student is ever ready! Parents are more ready (read, often over ambitious) and most gurus too want to show off their wares, in the hope that seeing the debutante on stage more may join the guru's class, raising both the income of a school or chances of a teacher to shine with a prized pupil. Arangetrams also means gifts that a guru gets (move over days of gold chains and saris, one in Madras takes a car per arangetram and had so many lined up in their street that neighbors thought the guru was a car dealer too!) hosting such a do akin to a wedding. From the card, to hall, decor, costume, even food, everything looks like a mini wedding, a glittering gathering.....
Qualities of heart one looks for in artistes. If they don't have it, how can they even claim to be one? Most are mistaking skill for art. Anyone who learns little dance or music thinks they have become an artist! They have only acquired a skill. Like plumber does, or an electrician. Only after years of practice a skill becomes a craft. Once a craft is honed and sharpened it sometimes becomes art. Artists are born, not made. It's not mere training but attitude. Unless you are a born genius like some legends were - Ram Gopal, Uday Shankar, Guru Gopinath - Balasaraswati whose centenary just got over and IGNCA under a truly cultured head Dr. Sachidanand Joshi, made effort to mount a two day focus in May. Trustees Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam and Dr. Sonal Mansingh, flanked by another great Pt. Birju Maharaj recalled her life and work. Thus, the month of May was fulsome.
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There have always been profound discussions on the difference between a teacher and a guru. It's often said that a teacher teaches skills but a guru imparts knowledge of how to efficiently use those. Guru-Shishya parampara where the relationship between a student and his teacher extends beyond the realm of gaining knowledge and delves into a deep seated personal equation, has always been an integral part of the Indian education system. This tradition though now diluted, is still followed by Indian classical dancers and musicians where the guru creates a talented artiste out of the student and also tries to ensure that the student retains the necessary humility to go beyond greatness. The tradition of classical dance and music is an ever flowing river. An individual is but a tributary of this greatness. I met some of the revered gurus of today and delved into their own journeys as a student and now that of a guru.
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Most major metropolises in the world - spanning from Havana to Shanghai - go gaga on the International Dance Day holding flagship events with dance performances participated by the young and the old alike, literally on the select streets and city squares. Created by the Dance Committee of the International Theatre Institute, the main partner for the performing arts of UNESCO, the event takes place every year on April 29, the anniversary of the birth of Jean-Georges Noverre, the creator of modern ballet. Kolkata is no exception to this endearing global frenzy, with select conclaves at Rabindra Sadan and Govindan Kutty Auditoria in particular. Out of the score or so performances at the latter venue witnessed by this critic, here is a select view of the significant performances of the evening.
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Opening the Pravaha Dance Festival organized by Sanjali Dance Company of Odissi dancer Sharmila Mukerjee at Chowdaiah Hall, Bangalore on 13th April, Anita Ratnam presented in her Neo Bharatam style, her work 'Ma3ka' that she had conceived and choreographed in 2009. In her choreographer's note, Anita mentions: 'Every ten years I revisit a work of mine because I want to see if what I created continues to be relevant. Today the audience demographic is almost new, their attention span is much shorter, and also to reach out to the new audience it is important to retrace past works. I was inspired reading Shri Aurobindo's book The Mother...in Ma3ka, I explore the three facets of Aurobindo's the divine feminine - Saraswati, Lakshmi and Meenakshi.'....
Geeta Chandran and her daughter Sharanya Chandran presented Bharatanatyam, solo and duet. Geeta is a seasoned dancer, with lot of experience performing as a solo dancer and also as a choreographer. Under the aegis of her institution Natya Vriksha, she and her husband Rajiv Chandran organize for past 15 years, a two day World Dance Day festival, curating it with thematic talk.....
Sharmila Mukerjee has choreographed the dance-drama in memory of the anniversary of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. Though I had seen it four years ago, it was refreshing to watch it once again. As a matter of fact, I have liked Shookshma better than Hansika that Sharmila choreographed recently. While both are different in content and approach, Shookshma has more gravitas. It is about a woman who is blessed with the ability to transform into a flowering tree as the name suggests. It is subtle, intangible, all pervading spirit that manifests in the form of a boon for the protagonist. The flowers in abundance bring progressive changes in the life of her sisters until tragedy strikes....
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Some of the emerging formalities of late have made me wonder if strict rules should be insisted upon on how long a master of ceremonies or the compere can speak. A new trend is now being noticed of three or more dancers featured in one performance, each presenting one item! The large part of the evening is spent on formalities with a row of chief guests having courtesies extended to them – and more importantly the master of ceremonies praising them and reciting details of their achievements – including those of the bureaucrat who is called for obvious reasons. Suramya organising Nritya Darpan recently at the Habitat Stein auditorium, had senior dancers with titles to their credit as chief guests, invited to the stage with lengthy introductions. It was as if they were being recommended for the Padmashri, which, on their own merit, most had already earned – and which was the reason they were being called as chief guests, one presumes! So where was the need for these long winding introductions for such well-established dancers? The formalities took up precious time. And I wondered how four dancers slated to perform could be accommodated in the rest of the time. I need not have worried for each had one item to perform!
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