Think! - TRENDING by Ashish Mohan Khokar

Think what are dance aspirations of the marginalized, small town India? What facilities they have by way of halls, support systems and students. Small town India aka two tier aka smart cities are offering more culture than an over-fed metro. Look at the contrasts: in big cities audiences are sparse; one often bombards people with emails, telephone calls, WhatsApp then last minute reminders! After all this effort, max 100 turn up. Contrast this with smart cities aka small town India: Halls are full, audiences are eager because of many reasons: rarely outstation artistes come their way. Often on the same day, not much is taking place. More importantly, in small town India halls being very few, once booked others know there’s no venue left so they plan accordingly.  Add abundant audiences that come anyway hearing the name of known or unknown artiste or simply to be nice to the organizers, who must be known socially or professionally.

An email comes from one Radhika Shetty from Mangalore, asking: Sir, will you please attend our dance festival? I ask, not assuming I'm much known in moffusil India, “Who gave you my name or email id to invite?” She says, “I read you on narthaki and have most copies of attendance.” (In south India I've learnt to be polite so I can't ask, “Who are you?” Internet sometimes can give a clue nowadays but there are many similar sounding Radhika Shettys on the net!) So I ask instead for a list of who is dancing. 3 out of 6, I want to see (their progress in art, having seen them grow up) - Purvadhanashree, sincere student of Swapnasundari and daughter of Kamalini and Kuber Dutt of Delhi Doordarshan, and B.P. Sweekruth, Kathak talent from Bangalore. Add Dakshina, the dancing daughter of Rama Vaidyanathan, I have never seen before on stage.  Rama was Yamini Krishnamurthy's best student and now Saroja Vaidyanathan’s bahu. So I catch a train from Madras and reach Mangalore.

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Mothers by Daughters & Others - Spontaneous, yet measured - Chitra Chandrasekhar Dasarathy

A favourite story that my mother likes to tell my children is when during a performance, I as a little girl fell asleep in the wings after dancing a Jatiswaram while she danced the Varnam! She came in and woke me up in time for the Tillana!
My mother Jaya Chandrasekhar, from the time I can remember, balanced her multiple roles and continues to amaze us with her energy for her varied interests. She went out to teach at The Vasanta College for Women at The Krishnamurthi Foundation, Banaras, in the mid-sixties in the last century.  She later also taught dance at the Banaras Hindu University. Among my circle of friends in a small town like Banaras, I soon realised that Amma was one of the few women who worked. She managed a home and family not to forget a steady stream of visitors who came to Kashi as pilgrims and she danced! She has always had a perspective which was large and inclusive, she probably inherited it from her father, whose interests ranged between astrology, Tamil classical literature and American politics (he worked for the USIS in New Delhi) and her mother who encouraged her to study and graduate in law, learn  to dance and sing! Amma   trained in Bharatanatyam and performed for long years. Her fluidity of movements in dance is something I cherish and describe to my students when I teach.

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Not just anyBODY - Poison-free nourishment - Nimmi Ittycheria John

Thirty years of telling people what to eat and how good it was for their
 bodies got me thinking…. Was I being too theoretical… Is a carrot 
really good for you? And what about the much talked about greens?

To my horror, after the time I have spent with farmers and their 
practices, I discovered that I was wrong all those years. Not because 
the vegetables have changed, but because our methods of cultivation 
spell slow death for all those who consume them. We often scoff at those
 who take their own lives with a swig of poison and the like. We have 
not given much thought to the fact that this is precisely what each us 
is indulging in everyday rather obliviously albeit in smaller doses.

Which led me to the question ‘are we just filling ourselves or are we 
nourishing ourselves?’ or worse, ‘are we poisoning ourselves?’

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Not just anyBODY - Health Recipes 10: Roasted Tomato and Capsicum Soup - Uma Pushpanathan

Serves: 4

Per serving: 418kJ

Preparation and cooking time: 45 minutes 

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Twin yarns of empowered Eves - The Eastern Eye: Column by Dr.Utpal K Banerjee

  
In Puranic annals, there are two epochal encounters that are clear triumphs of the feminist among our ancient story-tellers. The first is the encounter between the deva-guru’s son Kach and the demon-guru’s daughter Devayani: when Kach, at the behest of his father Brahaspati, comes to learn from Sukra -- the preceptor of demons – the mritasanjivani stotra (magical hymn of resurrecting from the dead), which the war weary gods are in dire need of. Besmirched by the beauteous Devayani, Kach manages to captivate her blossoming love, responding to his earnest pleadings of passion. This goes on till the resentful demons kill the aspiring Kach. Egged on by Devayani, Kach is revived from death-bed by Sukra through an application of the very same hymn and an instant learner, Kach attempts to escape to the gods, armed with his new knowledge. Heaven knows no fury like the woman scorned and Devayani pulls herself to her full height, roundly condemning Kach to remain forever a mere carrier of knowledge, but never able to use it in practice.
The second encounter was the one between Arjuna, the middle Pandava -- during his years of remaining in penance as a mendicant recluse – and Chitrangada, the strapping young princess of Manipur, brought up as a fighter-warrior son-in-disguise by her doting father. Suddenly, taken in by the surging emotions of a damsel, she is aroused by Arjuna at the first sight of his immaculate masculinity. And equally suddenly, she finds herself grossly inadequate, facing rejection by the indifferent male, citing a vow of celibacy. A diffident Chitrangada moves the high heavens to secure Cupid’s blessings for donning a transient seductive role. Arjuna succumbs, but after a year of consummate ardour, is inquisitive enough to seek the “real” Chitrangada. They agree to marry, but now on equal terms.

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Interview - Ananda Shankar Jayant on Natyarambha

“Our future will be technology driven... we will need to embrace it,” said PM Modi recently.
Inspired by the digital dream of our Prime Minister, dancer, choreographer, and scholar Ananda Shankar Jayant, conceived and produced Natyarambha that was launched on 22nd January 2017 in Hyderabad, by celebrated dancer Dr. Sonal Mansingh and BVR Mohan Reddy,  Executive Chairman, Cyient. 
Ananda Shankar Jayant talks about Natyarambha (www.natyarambha.com)
Congratulations on launching Natyarambha.  What is it all about?   
Natyarambha is Shankarananda Kalakshetra’s digital arts education initiative. It is a web based application to help in the practice of Bharatanatyam adavus  -  a detailed and interactive Bharatanatyam practice app that enables practitioners and students, practice the basics of Bharatanatyam, a digital connect  between the guru and the shishya, the teacher and the student, thereby bridging classroom training under a teacher and personal home rehearsals.

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Dhauli-Kalinga Festival epitomises peace and unity amidst diversity - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Watching audiences of over two thousand strong, comprising a large percentage of youngsters, enthusiastically applaud a performing art event makes for a heartening experience, particularly at a time when dance events in the auditoriums are facing dwindling audiences. What was initially started thirteen years ago in the Peace Pagoda atop Dhauli as the Dhauli-Kalinga Mahotsav featuring only martial art forms, has expanded in scope, bringing under its sponsoring umbrella classical, folk and martial art forms. What better venue than one watered by the river Daya, which centuries ago ran red with the blood of slain soldiers in the Kalinga war (the carnage converting conqueror Ashoka into Dharma Ashoka) to spread the message of peace? The festival now mounted at the foothill of Dhauli, is inaugurated with the symbolic act of six to seven chief guests on the dais with backs to audience, facing the lighted Peace Pagoda and the adjacent Shiva temple atop the hill, each raising the burning torch held in the hand paying obeisance, as an oath to peace. Today the Mahotsav (Feb 6-8) sponsored by Odisha Tourism is organised by Orissa Dance Academy in association with Art Vision, the original organisers of the purely martial arts version.


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