a. | Pandit Birju Maharaj | Kathak maestro
Kathak maestro Pandit Birju Maharaj had a dream of opening a dance-school and Kalashram is the real-face of the dream. In Kalashram, the students are trained in the field of Kathak, and other associated disciplines like vocal and instrumental music, yoga, painting, Sanskrit, dramatics, stagecraft etc.
The classrooms, practice halls and amphitheatre of Kalarshram reflect a shade of rural setup in the busy and fast urban lifestyle. The natural atmosphere, with numerous trees and ponds would be extremely inspiring and would bring everyone close to the simple, unassuming but rich heritage of the country.
The objective of the institute is primarily to produce highly talented students who would not only prove worthy of the training they receive, but also live as modest, humble and disciplined members of today's society.
b. |Geeta Chandran | the language of Dance
Geeta Chandran, a renowned artist who has synthesised the knowledge she has received from her Gurus to imprint Bharatanatyam with her personal vision of the dance. In her dance presentations Geeta CHandran skilfully weaves abstract notions of joy, beauty, values, aspiration, myth and spirituality.
She aptly states that Indian classical dance as the collective symbol for everything India has to offer to the world. The range of poetry, classical music, Indian philosophy, spirituality, mythology, stories of our land, best of the weaves and jewellery we have to offer.
It is a combination of expression, rhythm and melody. Classical dance is a language and for one to master it s/he has to go through the complete dictionary which takes a lot of time, patience and efforts.Classical dance requires the involvement of the entire body to communicate. The essence of dance has always been to nurture the soul and to seep in tradition.
c. | Kumudini Lakhia | Present and future of kathak
Kumudini Lakhia founded the Kadamb Centre of Dance and Music, an Ahmedabad based school of instruction that favors dialogue over dominance. She believes that traditional knowledge can be the spring board for innovation in thought and action. Below lines are an extract from an interview where she talks about the new vocabulary of kathak.
"Our teaching today has to be different — based on mutual respect between student and teacher. When I ask a student to do a particular movement, I ask the other students about how they feel about what was done. Do they feel they can improve upon it and if so how? So I respect their mind and also slowly develop the student’s critical faculty. Dancers must think and observe life around them. They must read a lot.Look at the great Kathak institutions with grand libraries stacked with books which are never read. How many students go to the library?”
We must teach our dancers to respect their bodies. To have dignity in their own bodies is something old teachers never taught us. So the female dancers were almost furtive in the way they held their bodies.
You can’t leave persons on an open field and say dance. Everything needs programming. Why have the IT and Science industry been doing so well in India today; because they are in the hands of thinking minds.
Kathak needs serious thought. Just using the best of dancers in a balancing act each time is not the right attitude. Area, Space, money — Yes, all these are needed. But these are not going to produce great art. We cannot have thousands of mindless dancers just mechanically dancing in mind-blowing virtuosity create anything for Kathak. We need a commander who takes charge with his mind. Students must think and create. This is a world of ideas. No mechanical dancing disassociated from the mind will do. Kathak has the body. Give it the mind it needs. That is the future.”
d. | Shama Bhate | Creating new idiom of kathak
Shama Bhate brings to her dance a holistic understanding of the Kathak tradition. A disciple of Guru Smt Rohini Bhate, she was blessed with special insight from her close association with Pt Mohanrao Kallianpurkar and, later, with Kathak maestro Pt Birju Maharaj.
She has created her own idiom of Kathak, blending it with special inputs from Pt Suresh Talwalkar in tala and laya. This idiom has evolved over the years and is a remarkable blend of virtuosity and abhinaya, revealing the high degree of classicism Shama has imbibed from her gurus. Her perspective on the dance form allows her to choreograph abstract subjects and contemporary themes with equal ease.
Shama Bhate feels that experimentation is imperative for art forms. She believes holding on to the classicism while presenting it in a new format. The classical form - gestures, movements, gaits and pirouettes should be set but there is always scope for experimentation with the subject matter.
Mallika Sarabhai is one of India’s leading choreographers and dancers, in constant demand as a soloist and with her own dance company, Darpana, creating and performing both classical and contemporary works. Mallika is an acclaimed and much awarded dancer in the Indian classical styles of Bharata Natyam and Kuchipudi.
In the following TEDtalk, she talks about dance as a communication medium. One of the most striking element of her talk is:
"Art can reach through. The only problem with our planners of the world is that they have always treated the arts as a cherry on the cake when it has to be the yeast"
f. | Aditi Mangaldas | Spirit of exploration
Aditi Mangaldas is a renowned Kathak dancer and choreographer, who works with the traditional repertoire of Kathak. With extensive training under the leading gurus of Kathak, Shrimati Kumudini Lakhia and Pandit Birju Maharaj, Aditi is today recognised for her artistry, technique, eloquence and characteristic energy that mark every performance. She started her own dance institution in Delhi, the Drishtikon Dance Foundation, where she is the artistic director and principal dance.
She learnt from Kumudini Lakhia the essence of dance, the courage to be free and fearless, the ability tounderstand the relation of my body to the space that surrounds me. From her second guru, Shri Birju Maharaj, the scion of the traditional kathak family and India's greatest kathak maestro, she learnt to love dance as though it were human, to feel its all-encompassing beauty, to centre myself within our body.
She looks at the ancient dance form of kathak with a modern mind. She works with the dynamism of kathak, and strengthens it with the yoga spine.
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