A serious scholar whose theories are based on information gathered by delving into sources and doing field research, Dr.Navina Jafa spoke on her perspective of how Kathak evolved as a dance form in a programme Safarnama comprising a talk followed by a short dance presentation at the Alliance Francaise, Delhi. The nodal point of what she was saying was that rather than looking at the dance history as a linear development, one should look at it as a cultural process in circularity, evolving out of the eco system in which art lives - its various aspects comprising performance ingredients from different groups of people, who for various reasons, political, climatic, social, migrated and settled in different parts plying their respective trade.
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Transitions and Tradition – both are multidimensional terms and I think they are like Yin and Yang. One has the seed, the possibility of the other. A true traditional form gives itself to transition and there is transition because the form is rooted in tradition. At the end of Natyashastra, Bharata Muni says, “Whatever I have said is not the final word on art forms. They must evolve, if they have to survive.” And that is why we all are here in 21st century discussing, learning, practicing, teaching, celebrating dances which are centuries old.
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Living in Delhi, one comes across a very large number of highly esteemed Indian artists, including those from the performing arts of dance, having made the capital their centre of activities, for residence as well as performance. This seems to happen primarily for two reasons. First, the capital remains an assumed source of patronage from various quarters. And second, one gets to witness -- and thereby get intellectually stimulated -- by the visiting foreign artists, who always touch the capital in order to count "having done" a country, much like any other foreign tourist. Living in a far away eastern metropolis however, one perceives that Kolkata is disadvantaged precisely on the same two scores. At the beginning of a well-organised, three-day Festival of Indian Classical Dance, presented on September 7-9 by Dover Lane Music Conference and Dover Lane Music Academy at the ICCR Kolkata, when the latter's regional director made an observation on the relative absence of artist quality as well as audience enthusiasm in the classical dance scene, it was immediately pointed out by the secretary of the venerable Dover Lane authorities -- who have been organising these festivals every year very much on quality criteria alone -- that out of nine eminent performers this year, as many as five are from this very city. It became an interesting exercise for this critic to examine both these points and counter-points.
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Dr. Sunil Kothari received the Sangeet Natak Akademi fellowship from the President in January this year, but his is a name that has been associated with dance since the 1950s. This intellectual personage, frail, with greying hair and an affable smile, is a well-known figure in dance circles. A dance scholar, critic and author, he has travelled extensively in India and abroad for his work and penned many books. The story of how he came to be associated with dance and the people who have enabled him on this journey is told in most part by Dr.Kothari himself, and some information taken from others who have chronicled it.
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Manipuri Nartanalaya is synonymous with its founder late Guru Bipin Singh, who has left behind a legacy of innumerable good students and a fund of goodwill, with programs in his memory organized all over the country for a year now. Heralding 100 eventful years from August 23, 1918 to August 23, 2018, when yeoman service has been rendered to Manipuri, by spreading its message to different parts of India and even abroad, a special event in Kolkata as a thanksgiving to this institution and its Guru, sponsored an evening of a group expression - Ghana Baari Barikhata: Reflections in a Raindrop - comprising a part of Manipuri's very traditional repertoire of songs as part of the rites of living, tracing the pangs of a nayika. On an evening sponsored by Darshana Jhaveri and Srimati Kalanidhi Devi of Manipuri Nartanalaya, one only had to hear the fulsome observations of all the distinguished guests during the inauguration, to know what a significant influence Guru Bipin Singh was on Manipuri. A traditionalist with a very contemporary mind, he worked with the belief that tradition while necessarily changing to be relevant to the people of each age, had to be anchored in the eternal verities prescribed by the texts.
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I had different plans for this column till I visited the Royal Ontario Museum and realised that the coming month of October marks a year since the "Weinstein moment" and the start of the "Times up" and "Me too" movements. I felt I owed it to dance, in fact to all arts, to talk about this unhappy reality of our world. For too long have issues like this been pushed under the carpet, weighed down with discomfort in dialoguing, wrongful restrictions of 'respect', and all of this has always worked against us women.In Canada presently for lectures, and a chance to spend some time with my son, I went one morning to one of Canada's largest museums, the Royal Ontario Museum, where an exhibition of photographs by one of India's most iconic, visionary and celebrated pioneers in colour photography, Raghubir Singh (1942-1999) were on display, in a special exhibit, a career spanning survey of his work, titled "Modernism on the Ganges". The exhibition was organized by The Metropolitan Museum of Art with the cooperation of Succession Raghubir Singh, and made possible by Nita and Mukesh Ambani and the Reliance Foundation. Singh who was known for his "democratic eye", and his ability to capture moments of eternal truths despite the constant movement of India's hordes, in the continuous play of multiple colours, seems to have failed in these qualities closer to home.
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Now that Odissi has assumed a paramount place in the Indian classical dance landscape -- both in the country and overseas -- and signal contributions of a handful of Odissi's great gurus loom large on its dance horizon, one can safely look back and assert three verities about arguably the greatest of them: Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. First, among the conclave of the Jayantika's very senior choreographers and scholars of the late fifties, his was perhaps the utmost attention paid to the kinaesthetics of the dancer's body and limbs that has stood the test of time. Second, Kelubabu's unique insight into the Odissi hastamudras and mukhabinaya, derived from his illustrious childhood upbringing among the Patachitrakars of Raghurajpur hamlet and honed by the later life exposure to the Odisha temple sculptures which he painstakingly surveyed and copied down with a scholar's eye that helped him enormously in widening his imagination that enabled him to provide ever new insights to his disciples. And third, talking about disciples, perhaps his was the largest number that has been created for Odissi - due to his indefatigable workshops conducted frequently especially in Kolkata, Mumbai and Delhi, outside his normal ambit within Orissa, throughout his lifetime, resulting in a very large circle of knowledgeably groomed dancers in India and abroad. Shraddhanjali, organised on August 25 and 26 in Kolkata by the Odissi Dancers Forum, to pay a joint tribute to their illustrious guru, was an appropriate occasion to observe, over the two days, how the savant's contribution has borne fruit in the eastern part of our large country, especially to let his solo choreographies proliferate into group compositions, thanks to his well-nurtured disciples and the latter, in turn, aiding to create a new line of millennial generation versed in Kelubabu's signature style.
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