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PAPER 4 Detail Study Of Kathak, Nautch Girls, Nritta, Nritya, Different Gharana-s, Present Status, Institutions, Artists Module 28 Kathak Dance Festivals Dance festivals have been part of Indian culturalscape since times when any religious festival like Sankranti, Holi, Navaratri, Durga Puja, Dashera, and Diwali are being celebrated. It was a spontaneous and easy coming together of music, mime and movement that Indians are given to thanks, in no small measure, to our abundant folk and tribal forms. Here we cite some dances performed on festive occasions. Ruf is performed by Kashmiri women on festive and religious occasions. Bacha Nagma is performed by boys dressed as girls and reflects the influence of the Kathak style. This ceremonial form is commonly performed at weddings. Nati is a dance of Kulu, a region well known for its smiling people and miles of apple orchards. During the Dussehra festival, idols of Raghunathji are brought from different shrines to the Kulu valley and much singing and dancing takes place. The Bhangra dance of Punjab is a robust one performed by men and Gidda is its female version. Kikli is a part of the Gidda and the festival of Teeyan which welcomes the rains is the principal occasion for this folk dance. In Madhya Pradesh, Jawara is the harvest dance 1 of the Bundelkhand region and Morni celebrates the advent of the seasons, especially rain and spring. Raas Leela is a popular dance drama of the Braj region of Uttar Pradesh. Pre-pubescent boys dress up as gopis and swarm and dance around the lead dancer playing Krishna. This evergreen group dance is staged throughout the year, especially at Janmashtami to observe Krishna’s birthday.1 Garba is the most popular and frequently performed folk dance of Gujarat. It takes place during Navratri, for nine nights in autumn. The tenth night is celebrated as Dasehra. The Ras which celebrates the love dance of the gopis with Radha and Krishna is also performed during Navaratri. When the dancers carry sticks and clank while sweeping past each other, the form is called Dandiya Ras and is very much in vogue today as a community get-together. Bihar’s Brindabani is performed during Chaitra Parva, the week-long festival marking the onset of spring. Jatra Ghat, Kalika Ghat and Garia Ghat are all forms of folk dance associated with Chaitra Parva. Nian Pata, Kanta Pata and Jhula Pata are versions of the Chaitra Parva festivities in Orissa. Bihu of Assam is a part of the Bohag Bihu festival that is observed in mid-April when harvesting is under way. While most of these folk and tribal dances take place in the open, some dances call for a special setting like a temple or props of totemic value.2 In Karnataka, Karaga is a ritual dance and Pooja Kunitha is a sacred dance performed only by priests of local temples. It 2 involves balancing a large wooden idol on the head and dancing to the accompaniment of a drum. In Kerala, Kaikottikali is performed by women to celebrate the Onam festival. In Tamil Nadu, Kolattam is a dance for all seasons and events and is performed by women. In the Kummi style, women clap their hands while dancing in a circle. In Pinnal Kolattam, colorful ribbons are suspended from a pole or a high point and dancers braid and unbraid the ribbons while they dance.3 Nowadays, many of these forms are being kept alive with special folk art festivals and inviting groups to perform on the proscenium as part of mainstream festivals. In fact, Guru Gangadhar Pradhan Konark Dance and Music Festival that takes place every February at Konark Natya Mandap, concludes every evening with one folk dance form of Orissa. In 1927, a personable young Indian lady in London, Leila Sokhey, met the famous ballerina Anna Pavlova and bemoaned that though she had been very keen on learning dancing in India she could not make any headway. Leila Sokhey was none other than Madame Menaka, a name she assumed when she returned to India and took to dance full time and created a school in Bombay. Prior to Independence, the pioneering works of Madame Menaka in the Khandala-Bombay belt and Ram Gopal in Bangalore helped streamline Kathak presentations on the professional stage. They had no great learning in the form but were born dancers and thus culled from tradition and presented small short items that reflected the beauty and glory of this form far away from their setting or provenance! 3 Damayanti Joshi was her adopted daughter since Leila and Col. Sokhey had no children. Menaka’s interest in dance led her to devote a lifetime to dance and thus, thanks to her, Kathak got entrenched in Bombay. Lots of gurus, including Mohanrao Kalyanpurkar among others, got a foothold to teach Kathak to Bombay girls, largely due to the space and patronage afforded by Madame Menaka in Bombay and later at Khandala.4 Ram Gopal was India’s first truly international level, classical dancer. In his statuesque body and poses, Bharatanatyam sat very well, although by his own admission “my left side is Bharatanatyam and the right side is Kathakali and in my legs are Kathak.” He was trained in all three principal styles in vogue then (Orissi had not even been “discovered” until 1954 or officially established until 1958). He was trained by Guru Jailal and Sohanlal in Kathak. Ram was one of the first to team up with women dancers like Tara Chaudhri, Shevanti, Mrinalini Sarabhai, Retna Mohini-Bresson, M.K. Saroja and later with Kathak dancers like Kumudini Lakhia. He created travelling dance companies the likes of which the world, especially Europe, had not seen although he gave credit for his inspiration to the other light of his times, Uday Shankar, whose example had preceded Ram’s by a decade. Feted and fawned upon, he was like an Indian god come alive. Ram Gopal’s magic lasted far beyond his few active dancing years. He performed in some of best-known theatres of the world. He also immortalized himself through two films made on him: Aum Shiva and Ram by the famous French filmmaker Lamorisse.5 4 Post-Independence, Kathak was being revived and special efforts were made to bring stalwarts to cities like Delhi and Bombay to teach the form, in order to revive its diminished fortunes. Thus, Achchan and Shambhu Maharaj taught the Lucknow style in Delhi which Lachchu Maharaj taught in Bombay. Jaipur style also was brought by Narayan Prasad and Sundar Prasad and taught in Delhi and Bombay. Students of these great gurus then took the dance forward by taking it to next generation and thus the art continued and so did the guru shishya parampara. Achchan Maharaj (Birju Maharaj's father) being elder, learnt the most from Bindadin, and thus imparted further training to Shambhu and Lachchu. Shambhu Maharaj made his debut in 1926, at the All India Music Conference in Lucknow (those days these music conferences were the few major platforms where dance was showcased) and was awarded a gold medal for his tayari. The Lucknow gharana has always laid stress on bhava. Both Bindadin and Achchan Maharaj were gifted with a phenomenal capacity to evoke and project emotion and feelings in both dancing and singing. In Shambhu Maharaj's case, he derived all his taste and inspiration from Nasir Khan of Delhi gharana; he was his bosom friend. In fact, Shambhu Maharaj seldom performed Bindadin thumris as he mostly preferred Nasir Khan’s poems. Shambhu Maharaj is on record stating that most Kathaks (that's how he and that generation of dancers called themselves, Kathaks not Kathakaars) performed Bindadin’s thumris because they were suited for rendering in 5 moderate tempo, while Shambhu Maharaj did not find them conducive to the leisurely development of bhava. It was too hurried. Shambhu Maharaj devised the courtly style of sitting and performing.6 Thus, in next generation in Delhi, Birju Maharaj taught many. Mohanrao Kalyanpurkar settled in Bombay, then Pune, then Lucknow and also taught many. Being trained in both Jaipur and Lucknow styles, he had a firm understanding of the dance form. At a time when women taking up dancing was not looked upon favorably, Sukhdev Maharaj of Nepal-Banaras took the brave step of teaching dance to his daughters Tara, Sitara Devi, Alokananda who took the art from Banaras to Bombay. Others like Madame Menaka’s adopted daughter Damayanti Joshi and music family born Roshan Kumari learnt and propagated the dance form in western India. East India, centered in Kolkata, benefited from the presence of Sadhona Bose, Uday Shankar and others who followed in their footsteps. Thus, each decade and two, a generation of Kathakars rolled by and furthered the art form. We then had Uma Sharma, Maya Rao, Kumudini Lakhia take the form further having learnt from different masters, sometimes from more than one style, as was case with Maya Rao and Kumudini. It was common in the post-Independence generation to absorb maximum tutelage, as Kathak was fighting for identity and resurrection, having fallen on bad days under colonial rule, when it was dubbed Nautch. 6 In the early years following Independence, the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, organized 4 seminars, in which dance was given the last priority. The first National Seminar was organized in 1955 on Film, the second in 1956 on Drama, the third on Music in 1957 and the fourth and last on Dance in 1958. Apart from speakers and dancers of other dance forms, Mohanrao Kalyanpurkar, A.C. Pandeya and D.G.

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