Dance instructor brings Kathak to life

A YOUNG Indian woman awakes the morning after her wedding. She gasps as she touches a man sleeping next to her. She blushes, remembering, as she looks and sees the broken bracelets on the floor. He opens his eyes and looks at her. Filled with shame, she rushes to cover herself. He grabs at her shawl and she runs, gathering her shawl around her face.

It is a cool Saturday evening, and guests at the Indian Cultural Centre (ICC) are watching a fascinating kathak number. The audience is paying rapt attention; this particular number is especially captivating. The women especially are fascinated, and all of them are out of their seats or craning their necks to see over the heads of the persons in the packed auditorium to get a better look.

It was easy to be carried along an exotic and sensual tour of the senses when the   Centre, located at New Haven, just outside the city in the community of Bel Air, hosted an Indian Dance Lecture and Kathak demonstration two Saturday evenings ago.
The lecture was delivered by the Centre’s Kathak Instructor, Mousumi Shah, a charming young woman with an expressive face that is essential to Kathak or perhaps occurring because of her training in the discipline. Shaha, who hails from Calcutta, India, earned a Masters Degree at the National School of Kathak Dance in New Dehli and has been at the ICC for only nine months.

Addressing the guests in the filled to capacity auditorium of the Centre, Shaha gracefully grooved into the programme where she covered ‘Types of Dances of India’, ‘Elements of Indian Classical Dances’ and ‘The Music of Kathak’, before the Kathak demonstration segment of the programme.

I learned that day that there are two types of Indian dances, namely ‘Folk and Tribal’ dances and ‘Classical’ dances.
The folk and tribal dances are danced by ordinary people on special occasions like harvesting, planting, marriages and religious holidays. There are more than a hundred types of these dances, which depict the different socio-economic status and traditions of India.
What distinguishes the classical dances from the folk and tribal dances is that the Indian classical dances have definite rules that have been followed traditionally over the years. These dances are believed to have descended from the Natyashshahstar, which is known as the 5th Veda, by Bharatmuni. The classical dances were given as Bharatnatyam, Mohiniattam, Manipuri, Kathakal, Khucipudi and Kathak.

Explaining the elements of Indian Classical Dance, Shaha said that the dances can be divided into three parts, namely: Nritta, nritya and natya.
Natya means drama with speech, music and dancing.  Nritya means mime performed to the song, or, in other words, it is the interpretative dance. This one was easily recognizable even to the casual observer. Two young girls aged about seven or eight did what I’d call the ‘Peacock Dance’, which symbolised peacocks coming out to dance in the rain. The girls twirled and spread their colourful shawls in the manner of a peacock spreading its wings.
Nritta means pure dance steps performed rhythmically. Here, the movements of the body do not convey any mood or meaning, and its only purpose is to create beauty by making various patterns, lines in space and time.
It was at this forum also that I learned of ‘Abhinaya’. Abhinaya is a concept in Indian dance and drama that comes from Bharata’s  Natya Shastra, which  has come to mean ‘The Art Of Expression’. It is used as an integral part of all the Indian classical dance styles, which all feature some kind of mimetic aspect, for example, in depictions of daily life or devotional pieces.

This is further divided into Lokadharmi and Natyadharmi Abhinaya. Natyadharmi is poetic and stylistic in nature, following a codified manner of presenting emotion and expression which pertains to the conventions of the stage, taking something from natural life and rendering it in a suitably stylised way. Lokadharmi abhinaya is the opposite:

Realistic and un-stylised, involving very natural expression and movement, as occurs in daily life.

The concept Abhinaya can further be divided into four categories. Angika Abhinaya relates to the movement of the body, and how the thing to be expressed is portrayed by movement of the anga, or limbs.

Vāchika Abhinaya relates to how expression is carried out through speech, and is more overtly used in drama, but also in music — in how the singer expresses emotion through his or her singing.

Aharya   Abhinaya means   expression through the use of external fittings, such as costumes, ornaments, lighting and makeup, which should all be complementary to the emotions expressed.

And my personal favourite — Sattvika Abhinaya. Sattvika Abhinaya is often confused with facial expression, which belongs to Angika Abhinaya. The actor has to bring of their own experiences something which will be authentic and capture the audience and elicit an empathetic response in them.

There was collective mirth as Shahah dramatized each of the Navras — the nine emotions, contorting her face with it’s dramatically Kohl-lined eyes to show each emotion. The emotions being love (sringar), humour (hasya), compassion (karuna), anger (raudra), fear (bhayanak), disgust (bibhatsa), wonderous (adbhuta), heroic (veera) and peaceful (shanta).

After a Nataraj (an invocation to Lord Shiva), which is the traditional way to begin a Kathak dance, Shaha launched into the dance segment of the programme which focused on Kathak. Kathak is one of the eight forms of Indian classical dances, originated from northern India, and can be traced back to the nomadic bards of ancient northern India who were known as Kathaks, or storytellers.

These bards, performing in village squares and temple courtyards, mostly specialized in recounting mythological and moral tales from the scriptures, and supplemented their recitals with hand gestures and facial expressions. There were all the elements of the theatre, using instrumental and vocal music along with stylized gestures, to enliven the stories. There are several musical instruments of Kathak which include the   tabla, harmonium, Sarangi and the sitar.

The word kathak comes from the Sanskrit word, katha, meaning story, and katthaka in Sanskrit means s/he who tells a story, or to do with stories.

At the end of the evening, Shaha was practically mobbed by admirers who all wanted a hug, kiss or handshake. The Centre will host a lecture and demonstration on folk and traditional dances of India on March 1.