PAPER 6 DANCE IN INDIA TODAY, DANCE-DRAMAS, CREATIVITY WITHIN THE CLASSICAL FORMS, INDIAN CLASSICAL DANCE IN DIASPORA (USA, UK, EUROPE, AUSTRALIA, ETC.) MODULE 15 KATHAK AS VOCATION For long has dance been a vocation in India. Both men and women have been ritual dance specialists associated with temples and monasteries. The story of the Devadasis, Maibis and Maharis / भहायी is well known. There are monk dancers in Assam called bhakats who are examples of males who dedicate their lives to the performance of dance as an offering and a ritual in a temple. There were also public platforms, where for entertainment purposes men and women danced. Chhau / छाऊ, Raibenshe / यैफᴂशे, Yakshagana / मऺगान, Kuchipudi / कु चिऩुड़ी, etc are examples of how and when traditionally males’ danced. Some of the women belonging to specific communities were associated with dancing for entertainment. For instance the Kalbelia / कारफेलरमा, Rai / याइ and Bedia / फेडडमा women were for centuries known to dance for entertainment. It is believed that the Bedia women danced for the laborers from different parts of the word who had collected at Taj Ganj at the time of the building of the Taj Mahal. Later they were among the communities and tribes that entertained the British troupes. Today many Bedia girls are among the Bar dancers of Mumbai. Apart from these girls there was also a group of traditional performers called by various names- Tawaif / तवामप, baijis / फाईजी, 1 etc. They were a whole range of professional dancing girls, some so talented that they had access to the highest centres of power, like the palace and the courtly setting, and were well integrated with the royals and the aristocracy. The case of Udham Bai who bore Muhammad Shah his successor is well known. Also well known is the association of the dancing girl Lal Kunwar with the later Mughals. Many other tawaifs had a similar story of enjoying access and privilege that came out of the artistic talents that they demonstrated. Apart from these communities which were closely associated with dance and music practice in the public sphere, there were women belonging to the security and comfort of domestic households who also danced and sang in many situations in a domestic setting. But this dancing and singing was more in the nature of celebratory dances to mark rites of passage events. The difference between those who danced on these occasions and the ritual and art specialists mentioned earlier, is that the latter lived their entire lives around the practice, training and social relations formed due to their artistic skills. Many of them did not even enter the domestic sphere preferring to dedicate themselves to their arts. Almost all of them lived in matrilineal families, where the birth of a girl child was celebrated. It is important to recognize that while they did not formally get married, they were encouraged to have liaisons and children were born from such liaisons. The girls normally adopted dance as their vocation if they had necessary skills, but the men practiced several supporting professions like singers, musicians and percussionists. In some cases they formed liaisons with rich patrons, God Kings (the King of Puri was known as the God King), and other members of the aristocracy. In that case the sons born out of these liaisons often enjoyed a courtier’s position. The men they had liaisons with took 2 care of their daily living, leaving them free to pursue their artistic practice. This is how these professional dancing and singing women became one with their arts. Even before India became independent, there was a simultaneous process of reform and revival of the arts. The professional performance communities whether the tawaifs and baijis or even the communities and tribes that were known for the dances of entertainment, were painted with the brush of stigma. They were however replaced with the standard bearers of the reformed versions of the arts. The new standard bearers were both men and women, but while in the case of Kathak, the traditional women were marginalized, as Pallabi Chakraborty establishes in her book “Bells of Change”, while the men from the traditional families were valorized. Thus, the Maharaj family was celebrated as the first family of Kathak but all the tawaifs that they had taught in Lucknow and Mumbai, were all ignored. Birju Maharaj says about his ancestral home that had been given to the family by the nawab that, “Stalwarts, leading musicians and famous tawaifs alike considered the Taleem Khana / तारीभखाना of this house to be a temple of Kathak.” In fact, many compositions were created for Kathak dance in 19th century Oudh by tawaifs, who employed both expression and movement while singing. In her book “Heart to Heart”, thumri singer Vidya Rao admits that one of the first dadras / दादया (Sudh aai re balam pardesiya ki…) that Rao learnt from Naina Devi was taught to the latter by Begum Akhtar, who learnt it from Lachhu Maharaj, who had in turn learnt it from Kathak maestro Kalka Prasad. The fact was that the fifties was a time of a cultural shift in the arts. The era of courtesans had ended. Old avenues of patronage had disappeared with the nawabs and rajas. All India Radio (AIR) was the new sponsor for music and cultural events that the new nation 3 sponsored were the new forums for the arts. Dance and Music schools were opening up and artistes were starting to perform in concerts. Classical music and dance were reaching the middle class. The courtesan tradition jarred with the new notions of the Indian nation and womanhood. In that scenario the argument developed that dance and music had to be rescued from the nautch / नाि girls. Only legally married women could sing for AIR. B.V. Keskar, the Minister for Information and Broadcasting, said, “No one whose private life was a public scandal would be patronized.” Thus none of these tawaifs found a post in the new centres of Kathak that the government created, including the various dance schools that it supported, like the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra or the Sangeet Bharati, or even set up, as in the case of the Kathak Kendra, the national institute for Kathak dance. This for instance had been a long issue that Sitara Devi felt scorned by. With Indian becoming independent, the stigma around the revived forms of dance went away to a large extent. The young government of India saw in the arts a chance to make a big impact in establishing the identity of a young nation with an old culture. Many modern educated young girls from good families, educated in modern schools and Universities, began to practice dance. Shambhu Maharaj was brought to Delhi from Lucknow, by Sangeet Natak Akademi’s Secretary, Nirmala Joshi to teach the first batch of national scholarship holders in Kathak. The first student to benefit from this scheme of the government was Maya Rao. In her touchingly written memoir “From Maya to Matter” she recalls the challenges of learning from pt. Shambhu Maharaj, whose language was colourful to say the least, and who himself had to struggle to take on the questions and concerns of this new, educated, modern type of student. After Maya Rao, came a whole 4 host of girls like Kumudini Lakhia, Bela Arnab, Maya’s younger sister, Chitra and many others. This situation was a peculiar mix of the Guru Shishya teaching in a modern institutional setting. Traditionally, without any overt discipline, knowledge was passed on seena-ba- seena, or Heart to Heart, in a tradition of one to the other through a disciple in which the student absorbs not just the art’s technicalities, but it’s whole inner world, from her guru, and in turn passes on that wisdom to her disciples. In the institutional setting with the discipline of classrooms, time-tables and schedules, such heart to heart transfer was not possible, but the truly driven teachers, whether from traditional families, or the new generation women dance teachers, would attempt to approximate the old style of teaching, as for them their art was not a career but a vocation. It is appalling that there is no clarity about the many livelihood opportunities that exist around the arts. Many such talented and driven teachers set up institutions of their own, and conduct classes of great intensities often from their home. Some didn’t bother about setting up institutions, but once they found a good student, they taught that student personally, thoroughly, with an eye for detail and lavished a lot of attention. Some joined important dance schools as teachers, happy to be assured a monthly fee as honorarium. Several joined regular schools and animated their dance departments- pt narendra Sharma for instance was associated with Modern School Barakhamba Road for almost four decades. Many others who were more academically oriented, joined University departments. Thus if dance is accepted as a vocation, not a casual hobby oriented dabble, many opening exist in the teaching of the arts. The recent decision by the NCERT following the Yashpal committee’s suggestions, the National Curriculum Framework for School Education 2005, aims at including arts education as a compulsory 5 subject till Class X. it is hoped that the experience gained by the students and the interest generated among the learners will encourage them in the future to pursue the various forms of the arts. This has opened the doors for teachers associated with the arts, especially arts like Kathak that need skills in music and dance.