Holistic horizons
LEELA VENKATARAMAN
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The Vasantotsav reflected a determination to save Kathak from an insular worldview.
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PHOTO: Deepak Mudgal
DYNAMIC DUO Rammohan Maharaj (left) with Deepak Maharaj.
Kalashram's mega annual festival Vasantotsav at the Kamani, had its crowning moments, not in the dance presentations, but in the musical play "Kabeer", a moving experience for the audience evoked by Shekhar Sen's singing and acting, giving the word `transcendental' a new resonance. Kalashram's sponsorship umbrella incorporating music and theatre with dance of non-Kathak denominations also, is all to the good, for too often dancers today are losing sight of the connectivity among art disciplines — the dwarfed horizon in the general run of insular Kathak dancers, treating themselves to little beyond their own art world evident in the shrunken attendance for Bharatanatyam and Odissi presentations.
To perform after Shekhar Sen's amazing brilliance, was a disadvantage for any artiste, and if Srjan's Dashanana nritya-natika did not evoke overwhelming applause, it was understandable. Choreographed by the late maestro Kelucharan Mohapatra, the ballet round Sita's abduction culminating in the Ram-Ravan battle, had its strong take-off aspects in the moving Oriya script based on Mahakavi Samrat Upendra Bhanja's "Baidehisha Bilasa". Music was by the late Bhuvaneswar Misra (though the shrill female voice in the tape rankled).
To top it was the well-rehearsed cast. But Ratikant Mohapatra's direction, casting himself in the role of Ravan, perceiving Ravan in the all-evil mould, was somewhat limiting. Despite his weakness, Ravan the anti-hero has great qualities apart from being a real Shiva bhakta. Too much in the Jatra pattern, the constant strutting about on the stage by Ravan in particular, took away from the dance emphasis. Sujata Mohapatra in the role of Sita was expressive.
Each day a homage
Making each day's presentation a homage to one departed artiste - namely Rukmini Devi, Damayanti Joshi, Guru Kelucharan and Shafaat Ahmed Khan - was sensitive.
Kalashram presented two scions of famous fathers, Rammohan Maharaj, son of Shambhu Maharaj and Deepak Maharaj, son of Birju Maharaj as a high-profile Kathak twosome.
Acrobatic and buoyant Kathak dancers seldom are. Notwithstanding his trimmer figure, Rammohan's hesitancy in the briefest moments requiring just one leg planted on terra firma, and lack of balance in the freezing on the sam, pointed sharply to the need for body-centering exercises. The bandishes with `dha' scattered like pearls at the finish or in between, the seedhi gat, ghungat andaz were all well done. Deepak is now in peak form and his Chau tala in the breezy upaj, quicksilver ginti arrangements and ladi pointed to a dancer who can joust with rhythm and its intricacies.
The jugalbandi finale was a misnomer. Barring the concluding phrases, there was little by way of actual rhythmic interaction between the two, with each doing his own thing.
Female divinity
Silvana Duarte, an Odissi dancer from Brazil's San Paula, who after training at Nrityagram under Protima Bedi and later under Guru Ramani Ranjan Jena is now a disciple of Sharon Lowen, presented Mahadevi Upasana at the Russian Cultural Centre, the evening sponsored by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations. Choreographed by Sharon Lowen, with Kamalini Dutt as artistic collaborator, Mahadevi Upasana, based on metaphysical abstractions particularly from the Shakta school of Tantrism, and on mythological and iconographical references associated with Divinity manifested in the female aspect, was conceived in three sections - Vag Bhava, Madhya and Shakti as Kundalini Shakti, Devi in mythology, and Devi as destroyer of the undivine.
Barring the `takadhini takatadhini' sankeernam (the rhythmic arithmetical arrangement of micro units of 9 - not `beats' as mentioned in the introduction and the brochure) where the footwork sat awkwardly with a nritta arrangement not common to Odissi, the dancer's rhythm and movement contours were neat, though the composition is far from the one-tala integrated varnam format it is said to follow, lyrical structure and rhythm being different.
O.S. Arun's music with other male voices provided tonal variety. Silvana must internalise the interpretative part and articulate the torso isolations more.
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