Pulse Winter Issue 119

Pulse south asian music and dance

Winter 2012 - Issue 119

ÂŁ7.50 | $15 | â‚Ź9.50

INSIDE In the Frame Misrana Reviews Darbar 2012, RSC - Much Ado About Nothing, Gait to the Spirit, Hetain Patel, India Dans Festival plus CD reviews: Englobed, Somali Party Southall

Shobana Jeyasingh Celebrates 25 years of Making Dance

One Man and his Chitravina Profile on Vidhya Subramanian

Celebrating

sound in print

pulseconnects.com

kadam

connecting asian dance and music communities

A festiv al cele br music, f ilm, dan ating the best ce, lite fashion rature, , food a n d d India, th e UK and esign from S Wednes day 10 – outh Asia.

Sunday 21 April 2013

Susheela Raman

Wednesday 10 April Royal Festival Hall Following her sold-out gig at Alchemy last year, Susheela Raman makes a triumphant return, collaborating with the Mein Mir Qawals, the Sufi powerhouses of Lahore.

‘Electrifying’  Financial Times

Ash King & Harshdeep Kaur

Saturday 20 April Queen Elizabeth Hall Dazzling Sufi songstress and Bollywood hit-maker perform.

Martin Simpson & Arieb Azhar Wednesday 17 April Purcell Room at Queen Elizabeth Hall Two guitar maestros in an exhilarating collaboration.

Plus much more including Daljit Nagra & Choman Hardi, Frances Harrison, and Nadeem Aslam

Tickets 0844 847 9910 Southbankcentre.co.uk/alchemy

The Bhavan Centre, UK

The premiere centre for Indian Art and culture outside the Indian sub-continent Regular courses in Instrumental Music / Vocal Music / Dance / Languages Art and Archaeology / History of Hindustani music

Literally something for everyone Some of the biggest artistes perform on our stage A beautiful art gallery | Tonnes of space for hire The Bhavan Centre 4a Castletown Road, West Kensington , London W14 9HE www.bhavan.net | info@bhavan.net | 020 7381 3086/4608

Pulse Winter 2012 — Issue 119 ISSN 1476-6019 Published by Kadam Asian Dance and Music c/o The Hat Factory, 65-67 Bute Street, Luton LU1 2EY +44 (0) 1582 876 038 Editorial Team Commissioning Editor Sanjeevini Dutta

CONTENTS

119/Contents 6

Assistant Editor Lucinda Al-Zoghbi

2 3 5

Editorial News Listings

6

Shobana Jeyasingh The Chess Master of Movement Sanjoy Roy launches the first in a threepart series by speaking to the iconic choreographer herself and tracing the twists and turns in the Company’s stylistic vision.

Assistants Jahnavi Harrison, Katie Ryan Design Art Director Pritpal Ajimal Photography Director Simon Richardson Subscriptions & Advertising subscriptions@pulseconnects.com advertising@pulseconnects.com

9

9

12

Contacts info@pulseconnects.com Disclaimer Pulse is published by Kadam Asian Dance and Music. Kadam are a part of SADA (South Asian Dance Alliance). No part of the magazine may be reproduced in any form without the written permission of the publisher.

Copyright of the text is shared with its authors. Copyright of the photographs/images reside with contributing photographers/ artists. All other rights reserved.

The views/opinions expressed in Pulse are the authors’ and not necessarily those of the editor or publisher. While reasonable effort has been made to avoid errors, no liability will be accepted for any that may have inadvertently occurred.

12

In The Frame: Misrana Simon Richardson captures the magic of the ISTD’s most recent student showcase.

14

Young Pulse CAT Student Takeover Students on the Bharatanatyam programme at the Centre for Advanced Training (CAT) reflect on the experience of working with dancer/ physical theatre practitioner, Shane Shambhu.

14

16

16

21

Chitravina Ravikiran Musician by Name, Musician by Nature Following his recent performance at Darbar Festival, Ravikiran speaks to Ken Hunt, who considers him to be “one of the most fascinating musicians I’ve ever met”.

17

In Profile Vidhya Subramanian Ahead of her UK performances earlier this month (December), bharatanatyam artist, Vidhya Subramanian, shares her journey thus far with Jahnavi Harrison.

Dance In The Community Vandana Hertfordshire-based independent artist, Divya Kasturi, developed a piece with local children for the Celebrate event at the Gordon Craig Theatre in Stevenage.

Annual subscription £30 with free delivery Cheques payable to Kadam, c/o The Hat Factory, 65-67 Bute Street, Luton LU1 2EY.

19

Reviews Dance Festival India Dans Festival

For online subscriptions and payments please visit www.pulseconnects.com

Dance Performance Gait to the Spirit 2012 (Mandala Arts)

20

Much Ado About Nothing (RSC) Kabaddi, Kabaddi, Kabaddi (Kali Theatre)

connecting asian dance and music communities

21

Be Like Water (Hetain Patel)

Pulse serves the arts sector by recording, critiquing, profiling and archiving South Asian dance and music in the UK through Pulse magazine and the website: www.pulseconnects.com.

22

Music Performance Double Bill: Pulsating Sursringar and Violin maestros - Joydeep Ghosh and the Mysore Bros Chitraveena Ravikiran Prattyush Banerjee

The magazine relies solely on income from subscriptions, advertising and donations. All donations welcome through our website www.pulseconnects.com

23

Shujaat Khan & Swapan Chaudhuri The Great British Gharana

24

CD Abdulkarim Raas & Kuljit Bhamra present Somali Party Southall (Somali Party Southall) Englobed (Giuliano Modarelli)

Published by

24

kadam

Kadam forms part of the SADA Alliance

Contents Page Photo Credits

FC SJDC - TooMortal / Photo: Tony Nandi 6 9 12 14 21 24

SJDC - Dev Kahan Hai? | Photo: Tony Nandi Chitravina Ravikiran | Photo: Simon Richardson Misrana / Photo: Simon Richardson Shane Shabhu and CAT students | Photo: Tim Cross Kabaddi, Kabaddi, Kabaddi | Photo: Jerome Hunt Englobed - Album Cover

WINTER 2012 PULSE 1

UPFRONT — LETTER FROM THE EDITOR / NEWS

Letter from the Editor

Past Events

Dear Reader As 2012 draws to a close and we review the year that has been, there is a small feeling of self-satisfaction in the Pulse team. We have made progress in putting out information on a variety of platforms: our free weekly Newsletter highlighting the events in the coming week that act as memory jogs; our reviews from Festivals like Alchemy and Darbar going online within forty-eight hours of performance; and our expanding team of writers and reviewers, spurred by the sessions on the Art of Critical Writing that took place around the UK. Last week we took the opportunity to meet our readers to find out what they thought of Pulse. Some of their responses were predictable – the musicians wanted a better balance of content between music and dance; the academics suggested setting up discussion forums to stimulate debate; more and bigger splashes of photographs were welcomed by all; and there was a consensus on continuing with a printed magazine while also supporting an e-version. We were delighted by practical suggestions from the group that the magazine, to widen its circulation, had to reach out to students and parents, and that we should look into covering Arangetrams.

Kadam/Pulse are looking to work more closely with the South Asian arts organisations of the SADAA and those outside it. We feel that to maximise the benefits of Pulse, we need to reflect the work being created and the international artists and companies who will be touring, so that expectations are built up.

Pulse is proud to close the year with a major new series on Shobana Jeyasingh, the untiring creative spirit of dance. The intriguing cover best expresses, along with Sanjoy Roy’s eloquent words, the mystique of the choreographer who never stops asking questions. Jeyasingh’s eye for framing and composition is so acute that I think of her as a chess master of movement.

Lastly I urge you to read Ken Hunt’s lucid and poetic description of the chitravina, and its Mozart-like maestro, Ravikiran. An article such as this is the reason why we need Pulse. Where else can we find such an inspiring and moving exposition that will make us go out to experience it for ourselves?

If you have enjoyed Pulse, tell your friends about it, subscribe or donate, to keep it going. Pulse does not receive Arts Council subsidy and relies on subscriptions and advertising.

Have a lovely Christmas break and let’s look with hope and optimism to 2013.

Warm wishes Sanjeevini 2 PULSE WINTER 2012

Desert Dancer star Freida Pinto with choreographer, Akram Khan, and co-stars Reece Ritchie and Tom Cullen | Photo: Courtesy of the Artist

Akram Khan to Choreograph First Feature Film On 9 October 2012, internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer Akram Khan and actress Freida Pinto announced their collaboration in a new film, Desert Dancer, at a press event at Sadler’s Wells, London. The event included a Q&A session with fellow cast members British actors Reece Ritchie and Tom Cullen, as well as director Richard Raymond. The film, which marks Khan’s film choreography debut, has been shot between Morocco and London and will première in 2013.

Dance UK Mentoring Scheme As the national voice for dance, Dance UK represents and supports the dance artists, teachers and students of today. Over the summer, the organisation announced a new mentoring scheme which is designed to give support to twenty mid-career dancers who have been identified by their peers as future leaders of the arts. The scheme, which is accredited by Arts Council England and forms a new partnership with Dancers’ Career Development, will provide six independent dancers and fourteen company dancers – all of whom are Dance UK members – with a mentorship which includes paid mentor and a £300 personal bursary.

Nominations and applications were accepted until Friday 7 September 2012, followed by an announcement of successful dancers on Wednesday 19 September 2012.

Among the group of twenty selected artists, there were three from the South Asian dance sector: Shane Shambhu, dancer, performer and Artistic Director of Shane Shambhu Company; Sonia Sabri, independent dancer, choreographer, and teacher and Artistic Director of Sonia Sabri Company; and Anusha Subramanyam, performer, choreographer and Artistic Director of Beeja. These artists will have the opportunity to develop their leadership skills, confidence and realise their professional artistic capacity. The mentor programme is currently in progress; it began in October 2012 and runs until May 2013. Due to high demand, Dance UK is planning to extend this programme to Scotland and repeat the scheme in 2013 and 2014 in England, Wales and Northern Ireland.

Mavin Khoo Premieres New Dance Work Internationally acclaimed dancer and choreographer Mavin Khoo premiered his most recent work, Aakasha, at the Manoel Theatre in Malta back in October 2012. Malaysian-born Khoo, who relocated to Malta at the beginning of the Noughties where he co-runs the University of Malta’s dance department, has been working on the piece for the last five years. In Sanskrit, Aakasha means ‘ether’, both in its elemental and metaphysical sense, and it is this dichotomy of intangible forces coming together that forms the concept of the piece. Researched and developed in Malta, the work showcases an international company of performers and artistic collaborators from the UK, Malaysia and Malta under Khoo’s direction.

A Journey Through Timelessness in the Heart of London On Thursday 1 November 2012, St Paul’s Church (also known as the Actors’ Church) in Covent Garden opened its doors to ancient music traditions from Bulgaria, India and England. For one night only, three vocal artists, Eugenia Georgieva (Bulgaria), Manickam Yogeswaran (Sri Lanka), and Jeremy Birchall (UK), came together for Yantra: A Journey Through Timelessness, a unique project inspired by an experimental session at BBC Radio 3’s late junction to explore the spiritual and folkloric elements from these diverse cultures. Three artists united by their passion for the unaccompanied human voice, and a proportion of the proceeds went to the Musicians’ Benevolent Fund – eclectic and ethical.

Looking Ahead Violin Virtuoso Releases Eighth Studio Album Time Out has hailed her as ‘Britain’s finest violinist of Indian classical music’, so what’s next for Jyotsna Srikanth? The music maestro, who is a fellow of Trinity College London, has announced that she will be releasing her eighth album during the spring.

NEWS — UPFRONT

The record will draw on Carnatic and Western classical traditions that Srikanth has dedicated her life’s work and she will combine its release with a tour of the UK and Europe in May 2013.

Critics’ Circle Announce Nominations for the 13th National Dance Awards On Friday 9 November, the Dance Section of the Critics’ Circle announced the nominations for this year’s National Dance Awards at a reception at the Robin Howard Dance Theatre, The Place. Among the nominees were Akram Khan for the DANCING TIMES AWARD FOR BEST MALE DANCER and BEST MODERN CHOREOGRAPHY for DESH, while Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company was nominated for BEST INDEPENDENT COMPANY. The winners will be announced at a ceremony to be held at the same venue on Monday 28 January 2013.

Upon announcing the nominees, the chairman of the Dance Section, Graham Watts OBE, said: “This year we have had many nominations from over thirty active dance critics, who are watching and reviewing dance on a regular and frequent basis up and down the United Kingdom. The Awards Committee wishes to express grateful thanks to our sponsors, without whom the event would not be possible; The Place for its continued support; dance critics for giving their time to ensure the best possible list of nominees; and, above all, the companies, choreographers and performers for giving us such a rich variety of choice. It has been a bumper year. We look forward to announcing the award winners on 28th January 2013.”

their new work – completed or work in progress – among their contemporaries in a professional and supportive environment. The performance will take place at the Hat Factory in Luton in May 2013 and will feature four acts of between ten and twenty minutes.

To apply, send the title, duration

and a short description of your piece together with a YouTube link to info@pulseconnects.com or, alternatively, send a DVD to the Kadam office – the address of which can be found on the contents page of this magazine.

Kadam has requested that submissions are received by 15 January 2013.

South Asian Dance Celebration for the New Year On 17 February 2013, a South Asian dance extravaganza will take place at Dance City in Newcastle upon Tyne, showcasing some of the best professionals and community groups in the North East. The event, which is supported by Gem Arts, will give individuals an opportunity to experience the richness of the region’s South Asian Dance groups. An afternoon of kathak, Bollywood, odissi, bharatanatyam and many other dance styles guaranteed to engage, excite and inspire!

Kadam Seeks Artists Submissions for UC Shorts

The ISTD’s South Asian Dance Faculty Announces Name Change

Following a successful launch earlier this year, Kadam will be presenting another UC Shorts performance platform in 2013 and is looking for South Asian dance artists to showcase their work. UC Shorts is a brilliant opportunity for artists from any South Asian dance genre to share

The South Asian Dance Faculty of the Imperial Society of Teachers of Dancing (ISTD) announced last month (November) that it has officially changed its name to the Classical Indian Dance Faculty.

The change of name to ‘Classical Indian Dance’ reflects and acknowledges the pre-eminence

of the generic name by which bharatanatyam and kathak – the two dance forms in which the ISTD offers examinations through the Faculty – are known widely in the UK, across the world and in India, the country of their origin. The ISTD has noted that its teachers and students, who come from several countries and continents, spontaneously and consistently refer to the dance forms as ‘Indian dance’ or ‘classical Indian dance’. Professor Christopher Bannerman, ISTD Chairman, said, “It is a great pleasure to learn of the new name of the Classical Indian Dance Faculty of the ISTD. This work has enhanced and broadened the ISTD portfolio and we look forward to a bright future for the Faculty and its students.”

Blue Lotus Festival The New Year brings a new arts festival to the ancient sacred city of Pushkar in Rajasthan, India as music and cultural traditions are celebrated for six days straight.

The Blue Lotus Festival takes place from 13–18 February 2013 with the Ananta Spa & Resorts in Leela Sevri as its main venue. Organised

Dalbar Singh | Photo: De Kulture Music

by De Kulture Music, Blue Lotus Festival covers the length and breadth of India’s creativity by bringing devotional Sufi vocalists, hypnotising dances and spiritual ceremonies, festive celebrations and party-like performances to one breathtaking location.

The Festival boasts many internationally-acclaimed musicians including Sufi qawwali singer Raza Khan and the langa singer Bachu Khan, as well as folk music artists Murra Lala Fafal and Mustafa Ali Jat, and Dalbar Singh, ‘the saviour of a wild and rare Punjabi performance style’. Other highlights include performances from the Mohini Devi troupe, who have popularised true Indian Gypsy dance outside of India, and Sharif Idu famed for bringing his strong and intense interpretations to ancient songs of love.

U.Dance 2013 Applications U.Dance, a national programme run by Youth Dance England, will be back in 2013 and applications were open until Tuesday 4 December 2012.

The programme consists of several performance platforms from around the country and this year, these annual sellout events will bring a blast of dance and creativity to the Midlands. Youth Dance England, the national organisation that champions dance for all children and young people, presents the best of British youth talent in world-class venues across the region. Platforms in Derbyshire, Leicestershire & Rutland, Lincolnshire, Northamptonshire and Nottinghamshire will take place between February and March 2013, followed by a Festival for the entire Midlands called MY Dance Festival, a showcase of Midlands Youth Dance Talent on 20 April 2013 at the Nottingham Playhouse.

The U.Dance 2012 saw Swati Youth Dance performing at The Lowry in Salford to represent the North West and, later, at the Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre in London. This time around U.Dance will be followed

by Youth Dance England’s (YDE) national youth dance festival which will take place in Leeds between 18 and 21 July.

The programme is a wonderful opportunity for young aspiring dancers, so look out for the next group of aspiring dance talent!

The Mayor of London’s Fund for Young Musicians Partnerships Programme The Mayor of London, Boris Johnson, has set up a programme to improve the instrumental learning opportunities for young Londoners by funding music services and arts organisations to work together.

The scheme (MFYM) aims to rekindle connections between institutions in the ‘genuine spirit of collaboration’ and welcomes applications from two or more music services and a professional arts organisation. One of the most recent groups to receive funding for 2012–2013 is the WINTER 2012 PULSE 3

UPFRONT — NEWS

Bollywood Brass Band who launched Bollywood Blast!, a project that covers the London Boroughs of Enfield, Barnet, Ealing and Harrow. Over 130 brass players will take part in workshops, master-classes and performance opportunities as part of Bollywood Blast! and the scheme is already proving to be a great success, particularly in the transition from primary to secondary school where there is a significant drop in brass players.

The next opportunity to apply for MFYM will be in June 2013 for projects starting in July 2014.

Breaking the Mould: Shobana Jeyasingh Since 2004, Breakin’ Convention has been one of the hottest events

in the dance calendar and each year this international festival of hip-hop dance theatre gets bigger and better. Hosted and curated

by UK hip-hop legend Jonzi D, this unique festival is the only event of its kind in the UK and is an unprecedented chance to see some of the world’s greatest hip-hop dance talent gathered together under one roof.

This year the highlyacclaimed iconic choreographer Shobana Jeyasingh has been announced as an addition to the 2013 event; a new move to include the wider dance community. Jeyasingh will lend her expertise to the festival through the role of guest mentor for Back to the Lab, a platform which gives four hip-hop choreographers the opportunity to be guided through their

creative process. Following a hugely successful inaugural project, Back to the Lab returns with four hand-picked choreographic talents: Anthony Bayou (Limited Edition); Kendra Horsburgh (BirdGang); Robby Graham (Bad Taste Cru); and Vicky Mantey (Boy Blue Entertainment). At the end of the course each choreographer will premiere a short piece of work at Sadler’s Wells on Saturday 16 February 2013.

Jeyasingh commented that: “Jonzi D is a remarkable artist and pioneer and I am very much looking forward to working with him in this project. Mentoring is a rewarding activity where one both gives and receives – a real leap into the unknown!”

While Jonzi added: “Shobana’s experience of bringing a non-

European form into the theatre and making it relevant to the contemporary dance idiom is extremely valuable to us. She has been creating work for more than twenty-five years in a career packed with awards and critical acclaim; she brings a real quality and depth of experience.”

Breakin’ Convention is held at Sadler’s Wells in London each May and also tours around the UK.

To submit a news story or an event listing, please email info@pulseconnects.com

Ravi Shankar An appreciation

T

o have lived in the time of giants and to have had opportunities to witness them playing music is something for which future generations will envy us. The pantheon of giants of Hindustani music active in the last century into this would see many names jostling, maybe even jockeying for position, playing out old rivalries.

The name most guaranteed a place in that pantheon would be Pandit Ravi Shankar.

He transformed the world’s understanding and appreciation of what Hindustani music was and, to go colloquial, where it was coming from. In an era in which the extent of many people’s knowledge of this music was the information contained in the 144 square inches available for an LP’s jacket notes or trying to catch a stage announcement about what was coming next, he was at the forefront of explaining what was going on and about to happen. This applied both at home and abroad.

When expanding into Europe and North America, Ravi Shankar had a singular advantage. He had the gift of the gab, whereas,

4 PULSE WINTER 2012

linguistically speaking, many of his contemporaries had the gift of the gaffe and were ill at ease about, or shy at, speaking in English.

Born on 7 April 1920 in the holy city of Varanasi, he never really knew his father, Shyām Shankar Chowdhury, who had left India soon after his last son’s birth. Soon after his departure for London, the future Ravi Shankar’s eldest brother Uday, nearly twenty years older than him, also took ship for England. In October 1930 his mother Hemāngini Devi and her remaining sons, the youngest of whom was Robindra Shankar Chowdhury, the coming Ravi (‘Sun’), relocated to Boulognesur-Seine in France. There they joined Uday Shankar, by then a Valentino-strength heart-throb dancer, a former Anna Pavlova ensemble star, and now leader of the Paris-based Compaigne de Danse et Musique Hindou (where hindou denotes ‘Indian’). Of meeting his brother Uday after a decade, he recalled to me: “It was one of the most thrilling experiences, because in those days we didn’t have superstars or rock musicians like today. There was

Ken Hunt, music writer and critic, recollects Ravi Shankar’s early years which set the direction of his future greatness.

the first Indian person who had that aura of the superstar.”

Somewhat pampered as the youngest, almost mascot-like, he danced and played minor musical instruments in their performances.

He adapted to foreign ways, picked up languages the way young sponges do and gained appreciations into what was going on in the bigger world. As they toured, the Pullman-era carriages, the luxury liners and the plumbing and room service of swanky hotels introduced him to a life quite beyond the dreams of those back in Nasrathpur near Ghazipur. With it came music of another kind. “Jazz was my first love, to be very frank,” he told me, “but jazz of those days, you know?”

When he emerged into the international spotlight as a classical soloist in the mid1950s, as composer to screen of fellow Bengali Satyajit Ray’s breakthrough film Pather Panchali, which scooped the ‘Best Human Document’ award at the 1956

Cannes Film Festival, he had that one huge advantage of language gifts. He knew and understood how little his overseas audiences understood of Hindustani music.

He had the English and the French to clarify what was going on. He wasn’t alone, of course; his sitarist rival, Vilayat Khan, was as fluent and adept at explaining what was going on. They represented the new spirit abroad. After Pather Panchali Shankar’s star would only rise. Nevertheless, it was never only music that drove him forwards. He knew how to communicate on so many levels.

Pandit Ravi Shankar’s death in San Diego, California on 11 December 2012 ends more than one era.

LISTINGS — UPFRONT

DECEMBER 3-22

22

Theatre ‘Happy Birthday Kali!

Talkback 2012’: Kali Theatre Arcola Theatre, London www.kalitheatre.co.uk Panto Dick Whittington Goes Bollywood: Tara Arts Tara Theatre, Earlsfield, London www.tara-arts.co.uk

23

Now4 April 2013

Exhibition Mughal India: Art, Culture & Empire British Library, London www.bl.uk/mughalindia

24

151 Jan 2013

Dance Chennai December Season: Various T.T.Krishnamachari Auditorium, The Music Academy Madras, Chennai, India www.chennaidecemberseason.com

55 Jan

17

Music Carnatic Vocal Concert: Smt. Booma Kasturi Brahma Gana Sabha, Pethachi Hall, Mylapore, India www.chennaidecemberseason.com Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Bala Devi Chandrashekar Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

1822

19

19, 21-23, 26-29, 31 20

Theatre Shared Memories: Kali Theatre with Arcola 60+ Arcola Theatre, London www.kalitheatre.co.uk Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Bala Devi Chandrashekar Narada Gana Sabha, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html Dance DESH: Akram Khan Company Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, France www.akramkhancompany.net Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Mavin Khoo Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

26

Dance Dwayam- A Unique Presentation of Bharatanatyam and Kathak: Divya Kasturi Meenakshi College, Kodambakkam, Chennai, India www.chennaidecemberseason.com Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Mythili Prakash Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html Kirtan End of Year Party: Kirtan London Mantra Lounge, Neal’s Yard, Covent Garden, London www.kirtanlondon.com

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Navia Menon Natarajan Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

28

Festival Carnatic Vocal Concert: Smt. Booma Kasturi Chennai Cultural Academy, Rama Rao Kala Mantap, T. Nagar, India www.chennaidecemberseason.com

29

30

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Pavitra Bhat Brahma Gana Sabha, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html 5

6

Dance Dwayam: A Unique Presentation of Bharatanatyam and Kathak: Divya Kasturi Chennai Cultural Academy, Rama Rao Kala Mantap, T. Nagar, Chennai, India www.chennaidecemberseason.com

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Ramya Ramnarayan Narada Gana Sabha Main Hall, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Ramya Ramnarayan Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

7

8

12

14

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Uma Govind Narada Gana Sabha Main Hall, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

1

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Mythili Prakash Brahma Gana Sabha, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Divya Kasturi Brahma Gana Sabha, Pethachi Hall, Mylapore, India www.chennaidecemberseason.com Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Bala Devi Chandrashekar Karthik Fine Arts, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

2

Dance DESH: Akram Khan Company Théâtre de la Ville, Paris, France www.akramkhancompany.net Dance Bharatanatyam/Kuchipudi: Rathna Kumar Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

3

Dance Bharatnatyam Recital: Uma Govind R K Swamy Auditorium, Chennai, India rtindia.net/madras12/1.html Dance Bharatanatyam/Kuchipudi: Rathna Kumar Bharat Kalachar, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

4

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Vidhya Subramanian Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

23

26

26-27

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Sulakshana Jayaram Parthasarathy Sabha, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Divya Kasturi Krishna Gana Sabha, Maharajapuram Santhanam Salai, T. Nagar, India www.chennaidecemberseason.com

Dance Kaavish: Sonia Sabri Company Purcell Room, Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London www.ssco.org.uk

8

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Mythili Prakash Music Academy, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

Dance DESH: Akram Khan Company Espace des Arts, Chalon‑sur‑Saône, France www.akramkhancompany.net

11

Literature Literature of the Indian Subcontinent Book Talk Series Arundhati Roy’s ‘The God of Small Things’ (1997): Arundhati Roy SOAS, University of London, London www.soas.ac.uk/ southasianstudies/events

13-15

Dance DESH: Akram Khan Company MC2, Grenoble, France www.akramkhancompany.net

13-18

Music Blue Lotus Festival: Various Artists TBC, Pushkar, India bluelotusfestival.com

14

Dance Kaavish: Sonia Sabri Company Pavilion Theatre, Bournemouth www.ssco.org.uk

16

Dance Breakin’ Convention: Back to the Lab: Shobana Jeyasingh, Anthony Bayou, Kendra Horsburgh, Robby Graham, Vicky Mantey Sadler’s Wells, London www.breakinconvention.com/ news/back-to-the-lab-2013announcement

20-21

Dance Gnosis: Akram Khan Company MC2, Grenoble, France www.akramkhancompany.net

21

Dance Rising: Aakash Odedra Dance City, Newcastle upon Tyne www.dancecity.co.uk/events/ performances/408/risingaakash-odedra-dance

22

Dance Kaavish: Sonia Sabri Company Swindon Dance, Swindon www.ssco.org.uk

23

Dance U.Dance 2013 - Nottinghamshire Episodes: Various Artists Nottingham Playhouse, Nottingham www.dance4.co.uk/youngpeople/project/udance-2013

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Ramya Ramnarayan Music Academy,Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Priya Venkataraman Krishna Gana Sabha: Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html Dance ONE: Amina Khayyam Dance Company Alliance Francaise de Delhi, New Delhi, India www.aminakhayyam.com

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Sulakshana Jayaram Brahma Gana Sabha. Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html Literature The Fishing Fleet: HusbandHunting in the Raj: Anne de Courcy Asia House, London asiahouse.org Music Music for the Mind and Soul: Madhu Tanjorkar, Rishii Chowdhury and Elena Catalano Capstone Theatre, Liverpool www.milapfest.com/home/whats-on Dance DESH: Akram Khan Company Saitama Arts Theater, Saitama, Japan www.akramkhancompany.net

FEBRUARY 2

Dance U.Dance 2013 - Northamptonshire - N.Dance: Various Artists N.Dance, Royal and Derngate, Northampton www.dance4.co.uk/youngpeople/project/udance-2013

6

Literature Literature of the Indian Subcontinent Book Talk SeriesHanif Kureishi’s ‘The Black Album’ (1995): Hanif Kureishi SOAS, University of London ,London www.amc.org.uk 15

3

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Vidhya Subramanian Music Academy, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

Dance ONE: Amina Khayyam Dance Company Gyan Manch, Kolkata, India www.aminakhayyam.com

JANUARY

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Pavitra Bhat Narada Gana Sabha, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

21

Dance Samanvaya: Madhavi Mudgal and Alarmel Valli Krishna Gana Sabha, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

27

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Priya Venkataraman Bharatiya Vidya Bhawan, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

20-23 Conference/Performance Conclave EPIC WOMEN: Kartik Fine Arts in association with Arangham Trust Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai, India www.narthaki.com/info/prv12/ prv661.html

Dance Dwayam: A Unique Presentation of Bharatanatyam and Kathak: Divya Kasturi Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Anna Nagar, Chennai, India www.chennaidecemberseason.com

Music Mohit Chauhan & Ustad Shafqat Amanat Ali Wembley Arena, London www.wembleyarena.co.uk

Dance U.Dance 2013 - & Rutland Mass Movement: Various Artists Peepul Centre, Leicester www.dance4.co.uk/youngpeople/project/udance-2013

Dance Kaavish: Sonia Sabri Company Deda, Derby www.ssco.org.uk

Dance Bharatanatyam Recital: Sulakshana Jayaram Karthik Fine Arts, Chennai, India artindia.net/madras12/1.html

WINTER 2012 PULSE 5

RECONFIGURATIONS

Words by Sanjoy Roy

Reconfigurations I

“...the crystalline spatial geometries (of 1988) ...(were) transfigured into more plastic figures of curves and crosscurrents”.

6 PULSE WINTER 2012

t was familiar, but also strange. Or perhaps it was just strangely familiar? The music sounded the same, the sequence and structure chimed true to memory, but when the dancers of Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company stepped onto the Linbury Theatre stage in March 2012 to perform her 1988 work Configurations, the piece was definitely… different. It wasn’t just the dancers (now with two men, instead of an all-woman group), or the costumes (red skirts all round instead of blue bharatanatyam outfits), or even the atmospheric lighting (by Jeyasingh’s now regular designer Lucy Carter). No, it was the dance itself. Where the original piece was constructed entirely from recognisable classical bharatanatyam sequences, each cued exactly to the musical rhythm, this version also included variations of those steps and poses, with the torso swerving into curves or the legs flicking out at angles, and with rhythms that intersected rather than matched the music. There were also newly-minted moves such as turns on the knee, and actions as ordinary as standing or walking. And the crystalline spatial geometries that had dominated the work in 1988 were now transfigured into more plastic figures

“... sense of double vision, of seeing something simultaneously logical and unforeseeable”..

Configurations | PHOTO: Tony Nandi

Shobana Jeyasingh is arguably one of the most significant voices to have emerged from South Asian dance in the UK. Her journey, which began in 1988 when she collaborated with composer Michael Nyman for Configurations, has continued over two and a half decades of unrelenting exploration, creativity and output. Sanjoy Roy has followed Jeyasingh since the first performance of Configurations and, in the Company’s silver jubilee year, picks up the story at the re-making of the first work, and charts the steps in-between.

This is the first of a three-part series which celebrates the choreographer and her solid body of work which will surely inspire generations to come.

of curves and cross-currents, carrying a greater emotional charge. Configurations? It might as well have been called Reconfigurations.

Reviewing the 2012 performance, Guardian dance critic Judith Mackrell described it as ‘one of those works whose elements combine with complete inevitability – and complete surprise’.

And the strange thing about that observation was not only the paradox of inevitability with surprise, but also that the 1988 version, though different in so many ways, seemed equally inevitable – and equally surprising. In fact, that sense of double vision, of seeing something simultaneously logical and unforeseeable, seems true of Jeyasingh’s career as a whole. So with the company’s 25th anniversary coming up in 2013, it seems a timely moment to loop back from Configurations 2012 to Configurations 1988, and retrace her coherent yet unpredictable career back to the present.

Jeyasingh founded her company in London in 1988, after performing for several years as a bharatanatyam dancer. Born in Madras (Chennai), she had trained in bharatanatyam as a child, arriving in the UK in 1981 to take a Masters degree in Shakespearean studies. Afterwards, she began performing as a

-

Shobana Jeyasingh 25 years of innovation

bharatanatyam soloist, but grew restless not only with the standard touring circuit for South Asian dance but also with the classical form itself. A key moment came when she balked at the idea of a photographer taking a backstage portrait of her in full temple-dancer costume, drinking a can of Coke. On reflection, she realised that the encounter of the classical with the commercial, or the traditional with the contemporary, need not be seen as disparate fields or clashing forces.

In fact, they were impossible to separate – part and parcel of both her past and her present.

It was at this juncture that Jeyasingh met British systems-based composer Michael Nyman, who had been much taken by the rhythmic permutations of carnatic music after seeing one of her performances; and it was a logical step for Jeyasingh to commission a score from him. That became Nyman’s String Quartet No. 2, and Jeyasingh made a solo to it, Miniatures, which she soon expanded into a female trio called Configurations. (In 1992 she reconfigured it again as a female quartet.) It was her first company piece, and set the pattern for her early cycle of works. And of course, it combined inevitability with surprise.

One surprise was that once Jeyasingh began choreographing, she stopped dancing (it’s far

“...compositional eye that gave Configurations, ... the coherence of dance and musical rhythm”.

more common for dancers to continue performing for some time after they begin creating works).

But as early as Configurations, it was clear that Jeyasingh’s incisive and enduring feeling for composition – for framing and structure – was the product of an outsider eye, the vantage point of a director rather than a performer. It was that compositional eye that gave Configurations its quality of inevitability, principally through the coherence of dance and musical rhythm.

Jeyasingh had given Nyman a ‘score’ of the dance counts, and he had worked to those timings. The result: a strict correspondence between notes and steps. Jeyasingh used the standard classical sequences of bharatanatyam and shaped them into kaleidoscopic, crystalline patterns while Nyman scored his music as repeated loops and rhythmic layers; musical time and stage space appeared as mathematical refractions of each other. The combination of a modern string quartet with bharatanatyam dancers was certainly startling, but it was clearly not arbitrary; in fact, it was axiomatic to the workings of the piece.

That is an important point. Many people at the time (and to some extent to this day) formulated WINTER 2012 PULSE 7

RECONFIGURATIONS

‘Maths, ... was key to Jeyasingh’s earliest works’. ‘ the nritta aspect of bharatanatyam ...which she dissected and decomposed ‘

Classic Cut trailer

8 PULSE WINTER 2012

Exit No Exit (2006) Dancers: Devaraj Thimmaiah and Kamala Devam | PHOTO: Chris Nash

TOOMORTAL (2012) | PHOTO: YARON ABULAFIA

“...a temple dancer figuring out a maths problem”.

Jeyasingh’s innovation as ‘setting Indian dance to Western music’, on the basis of the brute fact that it used Indian dance and Western music. And although a number of dancer/choreographers who came in her wake did exactly this, Jeyasingh was doing something altogether more artful, both more surprising and more logical: working out a choreographic idea through her material. Think of it like this: a temple dancer figuring out a maths problem while drinking Coke is not setting out to cross East with West or fuse old and new, the spiritual and the material – she’s figuring out a maths problem.

Maths, in fact, was key to Jeyasingh’s earliest works. Her next piece, Correspondences (1990) was inspired by the life of a mathematician, Srinivasan Ramanujan; while Late (1991) played with notions of time – human time, clockwork time. In these pieces, and in Byzantium (1991), Jeyasingh’s language was above all the nritta aspect of bharatanatyam – its formal, non-narrative elements – which she dissected and decomposed as if stripping away its embellishments before reassembling it into her own geometries.

With Making of Maps (1992) and especially Romance with Footnotes (1993) she began to roam, keeping bharatanatyam as a basis, but allowing her dancers to be much more exploratory, especially in the upper body. Such departures from her home ground of bharatanatyam were still tentative, but opened up new horizons. Audiences loved Romance with Footnotes for its lyrical freedom underpinned by a foundation of classical technique, but it was more like a holiday from home than a voyage into the future.

An altogether more abrasive work became the game-changer for Jeyasingh. Raid (1994) was based on the sport kabaddi, the choreography setting up two ‘teams’ – dance and sport – and having them raid each other’s territories. If the piece itself seemed incomplete, it had an important result: from then on, bharatanatyam remained a major player for Jeyasingh, but it was no longer always in the top spot, the reference point that she would depart from and return to.

“Raid enabled Jeyasingh ... to place herself, and not bharatanatyam, at the centre of her dance world”.

“...in Fine Frenzy (1999), ratcheting up the speed and complexity of her phrasing’”

Raid enabled Jeyasingh to establish her own choreographic voice, to place herself, and not bharatanatyam, at the centre of her dance world.

So she set out to explore its horizons, to see what she would discover. The 1996 Palimpsest was wilder and more wilful than anything she had produced before, but nevertheless tightly constructed, its underlying idea once again indicated in the title. A palimpsest is a manuscript, which has been overwritten by another text; here Jeyasingh mixed layers of movement writing.

Several different movement sources appeared – martial arts, nritta, abhinaya (the expressive, dramatic aspect of classical bharatanatyam), and naturalistic gesture – but shaped in more composite, variegated and overlapping phrases than in Raid. Her new daring found further expression in Intimacies of a Third Order (1998), its intrusive stage designs forcing the dancers away from centre stage, and its jarring, jagged style.

She raised the bar again in Fine Frenzy (1999), ratcheting up the speed and complexity of her phrasing, the dancers incorporating rapid-fire shifts in style and pace, which, with Django Bates’ bustling jazz score, evoked the turbulence and stimulation of modern life.

After Surface Tension (2000), in which a spiky, brittle dynamic was smoothed into a flow of motion, image and sound, Jeyasingh was struck with a potentially career-ending illness, a rare and apparently arbitrary auto-immune condition that paralysed both legs. For a year, she could scarcely walk. Nevertheless, she recovered

Fine Frenzy (1999) | PHOTO: Chris Nash

Byzantium (1991) Dancers: Mira Balachandran-Gokul, Nina Rajarani, Vidya Thirunarayan, Monisha Patil | PHOTO: Zubin Shroff

“...with Phantasmaton (2002), a new element appeared in her work: a sense of disquiet, of restlessness and rootlessness”.

“Faultline (2007), ... focused on urban youth ’...’ dance phrases given taunting, slangy inflections”.

“...she treated the sites not as backdrops or settings, but as players”.

fully, and her return to the stage in 2002 with Phantasmaton showed, if anything, a redoubled force. Phantasmaton was her most complex staging to date, featuring digital film projection, a brokenup set design and a soprano singer on stage. She had used a male dancer for Fine Frenzy as part of the ensemble, but here she worked with dancer Mavin Khoo for the first time, deploying his exceptional technical ability and glassy sexual ambiguity to great effect. Jeyasingh’s previous works had displayed a bracing sense of freedom and discovery, but with Phantasmaton a new element appeared in her work: a sense of disquiet, of restlessness and rootlessness.

Unsettledness and indeterminacy characterised several of her pieces over the next decade. Flicker (2005) was a fractious work set against pixellated film and static-electric sounds, full of jump-cuts and non-sequiturs. Exit No Exit (2006) portrayed a double world of dancing and domesticity from which one agitated spirit (Rathimalar Govindarajoo) keeps trying, and failing, to escape. Faultline (2007), a direct descendant of Phantasmaton that also featured film projection and soprano singer, was another haunted, wandering work, this time focused on urban youth, its tightly-knotted dance phrases given taunting, slangy inflections: finger flicks, attitudinous poses, swaggers and flinches. Bruise Blood (2009) was also combative, its opening series of assertive ‘statements’ by each of the dancers gradually becoming cut up and dissipated into a flow of action, composition and design, as if their separate identities were being subsumed into a larger flux.

Dev Kahan Hai? (2012) turned on irresolution; its hinge the figure of a woman awaiting a lover, her unrequited gestures refracted and reflected by a sharp chorus of inscrutable hipsters in chic designer outfits and shades.

Alongside her theatre choreography, Jeyasingh has developed another important line of work: site-specific performance. In works such as [h] Interland (2003, Greenwich Dance Agency), Foliage Chorus (2004, Arts Depot), 2Step (2008, St Paul’s Cathedral steps) and especially Counterpoint (2010, Somerset House) and TooMortal (2012, performed in a variety of old churches), she treated the sites not as backdrops or settings, but as players that not only frame the work but participate in it.

“... her marked preference to show rather than tell”.

Counterpoint staged a playful invasion of Somerset House by an Amazonian battalion of women in blazing red, as if its pristine fountained courtyard were being flooded with foreign life-blood.

TooMortal fathomed the depths of the human soul as five mortally-coiled women plied and plunged among wooden pews; the church nave acting both as a vital wellspring of symbolism and an impervious, implacable edifice of wood and stone.

TooMortal was one of Jeyasingh’s most directly emotional pieces, which is to say: not directly expressive. Indeed, one of the constants through Jeyasingh’s journey – from the early investigations into style and substance, through becoming unmoored from bharatanatyam to wander more wilfully, to chart her own trajectory – is her marked preference to show rather than tell: to indicate the frame for an action, to repeat a pattern so that its workings are revealed, to define the form of a phrase while leaving its meaning unidentified.

In other words, to show us configurations rather than give us messages. It’s why, even at her most dramatic or declamatory, she characteristically shows formal devices and tropes at play, proceeds by visual analogy or kinetic metaphor rather than ‘acting out’ her theme, so that we never get a single, straightforward vision of what is happening.

In fact, we often get a double vision. It’s the effect produced when, for example, you see something that looks simultaneously inevitable and surprising, and it is a quintessential Jeyasingh quality: to show the frame as well as the figure; the form as well as the feeling; the disciplined as well as the errant. Her twenty-five years of choreography suggest a double vision too: look back from the vantage point of the present and you can discern rhyme and reason in every step, a logic in both her choices and her chances. But look forward from the beginning, and you could never have predicted what was going to happen next, because her mind often seems one step ahead of her material, so it’s the audience (and sometimes the dancers) who are constantly playing catch-up. And why does that matter? Because in that process, Jeyasingh has configured and reconfigured not only her own work but also the dance landscape around her, changing what is possible in dance, and how we think about it.

WINTER 2012 PULSE 9

CAT - bharatanatyam

10 PULSE WINTER 2012

Centre for Advanced Training for South Asian and Contemporary Dance – Bharatanatyam Strand

Shane Shambhu Company Residency - October 2011 to 2012 words by louise o’hanlon / PHOTOGRAPHY BY tim cross

C

AT Subject Leader Anusha Subramanyam invited dancer, actor and choreographer/ director Shane Shambhu to work with our Bharatanatyam students over an extended period of time.

This enabled him to explore with them his choreographic process and develop a performance piece for our students’ repertoire. Shane commissioned musician David Leahy to work with the students throughout the development process and to provide live accompaniment on stage with the dancers. The piece, Inescapable Voices was first performed at the students’ summer showcase at DanceXchange, Birmingham Hippodrome in July 2012 and again as a curtain-raiser for Shane’s performance, Leaving Only A Trace, at mac in October.

Following the show we asked our students to record their experience of working with Shane and David and to reflect upon the impact the process of creating the work had had on them as young dancers.

The following are some of their comments-

I have never had such a connection with a dance piece and other dancers. It was a wonderful experience to mix dance forms and experiment with using your emotions within a piece. I am lucky to have worked with him.

audience from his very first action to the very last. He told the story well and clearly not only through his expressions but also his movements. I also was able to see the clever link between our piece, Inescapable Voices and Shane’s.

I feel I have learnt a lot from Shane from the particular style and way he dances. His way of dancing inspires me to try dancing and trying new things, to be creative and imaginative when dancing myself. Over the workshops I have had with Shane I have learnt several things that I will take back with me. I have learnt that a lot of emotion, storytelling and creativity goes into choreography.

My role in the piece meant that I had to establish a relationship with the musician as well as use my own past experiences to really connect with the movements. I had to communicate with the musician: this was something that I definitely was not used to, but the fact that he too was a dancer really helped me to understand the connection.

For me it was my first CAT intensive and I was incredibly privileged and happy to meet such a creative and innovative choreographer and performer such as Shane. I immediately loved his choreography but it was quite a challenge to pick up such a different piece and even though I was overcome with mixed emotions such as excitement and fear of not doing the piece proud, my fear soon disappeared and I was comfortable and couldn’t wait to perform. Not only was he a creative choreographer, but also a very creative teacher.

After we had given our best performance we could, we were very much excited to see Shane’s piece. His piece was exciting and he hooked the

I feel that I have learnt so much with Shane and that I have been able to uncover a whole new concept of dance throughout his lessons. The fact that I then got an opportunity to use this on stage through his showcase of Leaving Only A Trace was an enjoyable experience.

The strange yet innovative exercises that Shane did with us challenged us but also stretched our imagination for dance and theatre. Our piece, Inescapable Voices, portrayed a story of a young girl’s consciousness directing her to different emotional places. I thought Shane’s idea of portraying the voices inside someone’s head that can’t escape really showed how people’s emotions change through movement.

Having an extended period of time to work with an experienced artist who can challenge and excite students is an important part of our Centre for Advanced Training work. The student comments are testimony to the strong positive impact this relationship has had on their engagement and development as young dancers. Stimulating investment and talent in the potential dance artists of tomorrow will pay dividends to the sector in the future. The Centre for Advanced Training is also engaged in developing a Graduate Development group starting this autumn.

The project will allow selected graduate students to work with professional dance artists and companies to gain experience, understand choreographic process, develop performance skills, lighting design and musicality. Graduates can also explore placement as arts administrators or project managers if they wish to and create a progression route for themselves into the creative industries.

Louise O’Hanlon, Programme Manager, Centre for Advanced Training and current Bharatanatyam students.

For more information on the Centre for Advanced Training for Contemporary and South Asian Dance visit: www.dancexchange.org.uk/cat

The West Midlands is the home of the UK’s first ever Centre for Advanced Training for South Asian and Contemporary Dance (CAT). A partnership between DanceXchange and sampad South Asian Arts, the CAT is for young dancers aged between 11 and 16 who have shown exceptional talent in contemporary dance, or in the South Asian styles Kathak or Bharatanatyam.

WINTER 2012 PULSE 11

IN THE FRAME— MISRANA

12 PULSE WINTER 2012

Misrana PHOTOGRAPHY BY simon richardson

O

n Sunday 4 November 2012, the ISTD South Asian Dance Faculty, which was recently renamed as the Classical Indian Dance Faculty, hosted its biennial student showcase in association with Milapfest at the Quays Theatre, The Lowry in Salford. Presentations were made by students following the ISTD’s Kathak or Bharatanatyam syllabus and guest artists including Ankh and Devika Rao. Deepa Ganesh’s students participated as the invited group from the region in addition to the students of Sujata Banerjee, Chitraleka Bolar, Nina Rajarani MBE, Swati Raut, Kajal Sharma and Anusha Subramanyam who were selected by audition.

WINTER 2012 PULSE 13

CHITRAVINA RAVIKIRAN

For the first in a series of articles about a specific musical instrument and a particular maestro of that instrument, Ken Hunt starts with Chitravina Ravikiran, the foremost and best-known virtuoso of South India’s chitravina.

The Instrument and the Musician

Chitravina Ravikiran Words by KEN HUNT PHOTOGRAPHY BY SIMON RICHARDSON

14 PULSE WINTER 2012

C “...musical voices that people hear in dreams”.

A live perfomrance

“It is dated at least before the sitar and vina”.

hitravina, alternatively known as the gottuvadyam, is an unfretted stringed instrument, elegant in the Indian manner, placed horizontally in front of the cross-legged musician and played with a cylindrical slide. Ancient by any musicological standards and one of the most wondrous (‘chitra’) musical instruments on the planet, it is testimony to human ingenuity. ...Or to wax poetic, how to take the eerie lucidity of the type of musical voices that people hear in dreams and transport those ethereal sounds into our waking hours. On recordings the chitravina’s voice is entrancing. To view Ravikiran do what he does in concert and to begin to grasp how he does it may well trigger a sensory epiphany – lifelong, to be repeated at will.

Organology is the science of musical instruments and their classification. Even if we dip just fleetingly into the foxed pages of that famed imaginary tome detailing the development of the South Asian subcontinent’s instruments, old certainties soon waver. During the twentieth century many of the front-row classical instruments underwent major changes.

Intuitive hunches, advances in technology, greater opportunities to travel and discover what others were doing, curiosity, structural or design experimentation and – never forget or underestimate it – rivalry all fed change.

All India Radio became the main patron of the nation’s post-Self-rule musical arts. AIR – or Akashvani – effectively superseded the centuries-old system of courtly patronage that had helped shape, sponsor and underwrite specific styles. Record companies also brought welcome purses; really handsome ones for higher-graded artists. Typically, until musicians’ eyes popped after encountering Western-style royalties and copyrights, these were one-off payments. The norm was for sessions to be buy-outs with no extra revenue based on gramophone sales or compositional creativity.

Musicians with new disposable incomes began commissioning instruments with improved, bespoke designs; the better to deliver what they were hearing in their heads.

Let’s time-hop back to 1913. It would have taken a good deal of intellectual straining or opiate-assisted leaps of the mind to predict what the sitar or sarod tadpoles would turn into over the next 100 years. By 1913 the chitravina was pretty much fully mature, supposedly having evolved from a seven-stringed instrument a long, long, long time before; though it, too, would benefit from a little twentieth-century cocktail of knowhow and magic.

“The chitravina is one of the oldest stringed instruments of Indian classical music. It is dated at least before the sitar and vina. The technique of playing is very simple,” Ravikiran deadpans. “We just pluck with the right hand and glide using a Teflon slide or ebony piece over the main strings with the left hand.”

As he renders safe in his Appreciating Carnatic Music (Ganesh & Co., Madras, 1997), the instrument “has twenty-one strings – six on top,

“It produces a smooth, singing tone”.

“His grandfather... released some 40-plus 78 rpm”.

three for rhythm and drone, and a set of twelve sympathetic strings which resonate automatically when the top strings are used. It produces a smooth, singing tone, with its timbre being especially impressive. The lower ranges are grand and warm; the higher ones are bright and sharp.”

Nowadays, he is more likely to be seen playing the twenty-string navachitravina, a chitravina for modern times that Rikhi Ram built to his specifications circa 1999–2000. Its design allows for better, amplified projection and is strung with six top, three drone and eleven sympathetic strings.

But before we go too far, it is time for a nomenclature break... “Chitravina is the traditional name for gottuvadyam,” he clarifies.

“Both are the same instrument, but it is only the name. The traditional name is chitravina, and gottuvadyam is a recent name.” For a long while gottuvadyam displaced chitravina. He explains the word’s origins: “The name was given about 100 years back by my grandfather’s guru. His name was Sakha Rama Rao. He was the guru of my grandfather as well as Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer.

He used to call that black piece, that ebony slide, his gottu. That was just an arbitrary name. There is really no meaning to that which can be traced back in any dictionary or anything. Vadyam means ‘instrument’. So gottuvadyam.”

In 1955 microgroove LPs of Indian classical music arrived for the first time. The Hindustani sarodist Ali Akbar Khan became the first principal soloist to make an LP of his own – the Yehudi Menuhin-curated Music of India: Morning and Evening Ragas. That same year France’s DucretetThomson label released a three-volume microgroove crash course into Hindustani and Carnatic music entitled Anthologie de la Musique Classique de l’Inde. Put together by the French musicologist, Hindologist Alain Daniélou, Auvidis reissued it in 1997. One track was by the senior musician Budalar Krishnamurthi Shastri revealing le gottuvādyam, played ‘by sliding a piece of polished wood over the strings’ before Teflon’s invention.

Born Narasimhan Ravikiran in February 1967, he is following in his forebears’ footsteps. (“I was born in Mysore but I settled down in Madras when I was 2 at the request of all the Madras music organisations there. It was always the cultural capital of the country so it’s pretty good for a musician to be there.”) His grandfather, the Mysore-based K.S. Narayana Iyengar (also Ayyangar) (1906–1959) and Ravikiran’s father N. Narasimhan (born 1943) went before him. His grandfather who died before his birth released some 40-plus 78 rpm gramophone discs, Ravikiran once told me, on various Indian labels from 1928 over three decades. (Another of India’s lost musical libraries never to have resurfaced commercially.)

The rebirth of interest in the instrument has been attributed to Sakha Rama Rao who died in 1930.

While these are all male names, the chitravina’s distaff side was also represented in the grand vina manner by the major-league female player, Mannargudi Savitri Ammal. Ragas from South India (Folkways, 1967) by Gayathri Rajapur, a student of that same Krishnamurti Shastri from

WINTER 2012 PULSE 15

CHITRAVINA RAVIKIRAN

Chitravina teaching

“...the lad could distinguish between some 325 ragas and 175 talas”.

“The reincarnation of his grandfather”.

16 PULSE WINTER 2012

Budalar, also made gottuvadyam converts. It carried liner notes by Joseph Byrd. Intriguingly, his later avant-garde rock group, The United States of America, at times conjured sounds electronically that gottuvadyam did acoustically.

Ravikiran was one of the musicians who advocated reverting to chitravina. An ally supporting this move was the Carnatic vocal giant M.S. Subbulakshmi. In the meanwhile, gottuvadyam had gained considerable currency.

Certainly older readers will have encountered that name well before chitravina. But, to roil the historical waters still more, like something from that Borgesian-style Book of Imaginary Instruments, there was also the name vipanchi floating about.

Reportedly, Ravikiran started actively responding to music at three months. Having been immersed in music since earliest nipperhood, he learned music like he learned languages. In April 1969 he made his public debut as a vocalist at the Malleshwaram Sangeeta Sabha in Bangalore.

That December at the Music Academy in Madras, before Ravi Shankar, Alla Rakha and other leading vidwans (masters), the lad could distinguish between some 325 ragas and 175 talas (rhythm cycles) and answered technical questions. His feat has been somewhat overblown down the years by suggestions that he was naming them too. Barely speaking, he was good at 2 but not that good. (A cut-to-the-chase paraphrase of a conversation in September 2012.)

He could, however, tell them apart. When Alla Rakha fed him a trick question, with childlike candour Ravikiran whispered, “This uncle [term of respect] knows nothing about rhythms.” It immediately endeared him to the tabla virtuoso. Witnessing such precocity, Shankar supposedly remarked, “If you don’t believe in God look at Ravikiran.” The exact attribution for this quote is hazy. Shankar did, however, confirm the tenor of his words when I attempted to get to the bottom of the matter – the nearest to the source you and I are likely to get.

As a consequence of his feat, for three years the Academy contributed a special monthly stipend to encourage his phenomenal promise. While scarcely more than a tot he would sit in his father’s lap and play the chitravina, leading to his dad getting him a child-size chitravina. Aged 5 he gave his first proper vocal recital in Bangalore. Within two years he had broadcast as a vocalist and by the age of 12 was giving chitravina recitals. Such was his youth and innate musicality that there was feverish speculation in Hindu and Carnatic circles – where child prodigies have been treated routinely and matter-of-factly as supporting rebirth – about him being the reincarnation of his grandfather.

“Basically the thing came about when I was telling these ragas [apart] when I was 2. At the time the astrological magazine of India carried out some sort of astrological study of my grandfather’s death chart and my birth chart. They did various calculations and came up with...” he paces his words, “this...” (breath) “... thing... I really don’t know much about astrology at all so I wouldn’t feel competent about the accuracy or otherwise of those things.

“...when people said I was a ‘reincarnation, a freak’... my father maintained he could do it (teach) any normal child”.

“...Ravikiran’s technique depends on the unsung”.

“...tHe voice... the grounding side of a great instrumental maestro”.

“That’s when people were talking about [how] I was a reincarnation; I was a freak or whatever it was. My father kept on maintaining that he could do it with any normal child and so he started experimenting on these people – my brother, my sister and my cousin.”

He is more comfortable talking about his father’s modi operandi for training him and his younger siblings and close kin – Ravikiran’s brother, the vocalist Sashikiran; his sister, the chitravina player Kiranavali; and his cousin, to whom Ravikiran acts as guru, Chitravina Ganesh. Ravikiran’s father would apply, refine and repeat his teaching techniques, not so much a cramming course as a get-them-young technique. “Coming back to my father’s teaching method itself, I don’t really remember what he did with me but I noticed what he was doing with my brother and sister and cousin.

My father was of the opinion that any normal child can be taught like this – fed information, purposefully exposed and that music can be built in like any other language. He was, of course, of the opinion that it could be a child from any point on the globe and it could be irrespective of caste or birth or diet or region or religion or whatever it is. Any normal human being has a certain amount of natural music ability built into them and all we have to do is channel it out, tap its potential.”

He takes stock. “What I’m trying to say is that the natural talent makes it easier for a parent to teach but any normal child can be taught in this way. That’s what my father’s contention was.”

More pragmatically, less mystically, AIR exempted him from the organisation’s standard minimum age bar, so he was broadcasting from the age of 12 with AIR awarding him senior-grade status one year on. “Ganesh also got an exemption from All India Radio; he got the same exemption [to play ‘underage’] that I got.” And in 2000 the French Buda label released Chitravina Ganesh’s blandlytitled Inde du Sud: Musique Carnatique album.

Like so many Carnatic and Hindustani instrumentalists, Ravikiran’s technique depends on the unsung. Normally he sings lyrics on the chitravina. In that respect he was assisted inordinately by the vocalist T. Brinda with whom he studied for many years, as did the vocalist Aruna Sairam. Famously, she eschewed making commercial recordings and avoided publicity, quite content to impart what she knew to musicians whom she believed in.

Less well-known in Ravikiran’s canon is an album called Navaragini (Rajalakshmi Audio, 2004).

It lacks all trace of chitravina. It is a full-length, sung rāgam-tānum-pallavi piece, the big cycle of fixed composition and spontaneous composition that counts as one of the pinnacles of Carnatic delivery.

It culminates in the full-tilt pallavi movement that takes in rāgams Bhairavi, Ranjani, Janaranjani, Rasikapriya, Varamu, Sri Saraswati, Manohari and Saraswatimonohari. It points to where it all began – the voice – and the grounding side of a great instrumental maestro whose name is synonymous with the instrument he plays.

VIdYhA Subramanian

Celebrated bharatanatyam exponent Vidhya Subramanian came to the UK earlier this month (December 2012) for two consecutive performances in London and Liverpool. Making her life as a dancer in California, after her move from Chennai, Subramanian tells Jahnavi Harrison how it all began.

VidhyaIn Profile Subramanian Words by Jahnavi HARRISON photography by S. Anwar

M “I feel like a kid in a candy store – I can hardly believe I am able to do this!”

“I was not a dream come true for any teacher...I was very annoying and stubborn.”

ost bharatanatyam teachers in suburban America have long since abandoned a performance career. The pressures of family life and the still relative dearth of regular performance opportunities make teaching the children of the Indian diaspora a much more financially viable option. Vidhya Subramanian is far from average. Both a teacher, choreographer, dancer, scholar and actress, she shows no sign of slowing down. Speaking of her upcoming UK performances and new work, she says, “I feel like a kid in a candy store – I can hardly believe I am able to do this!”

Though her accent is clearly marked by over two decades spent in Northern California, her roots are still firmly planted in Chennai, where she spent her first twenty-one years of life going to school and studying dance with Guru S.K. Rajaratnam.

Her upbringing was ‘conservative’, and though her engineer father had dreamed of becoming a professional mridangist, the financial pressures forced him in another direction. He sent his daughter to dance lessons, but told her guru that if she didn’t fare well by the time she reached arangetram, he couldn’t afford to keep paying for classes. “I was not a dream come true for any teacher,” Subramanian laughs. “I was very annoying and stubborn. If he said smile I would do the opposite.” However, a defining moment came as she began her opening piece on her arangetram in 1984. “I know it’s a cliché, but it was really a moment – I looked out at all these people and I started the pushpanjali and it just hit me that this is what I want to do. After that there were no complaints, no protests.”

“I was performing in India, then a month later arrived in freezing Boston. A lot of people think America is great... but for me I wasn’t very interested.”

Subramanian soon found herself touring all over India, and opportunities started to come in from abroad too. She travelled to Afghanistan to perform for troops during the Russian war, performed in France, Germany and Kenya, presented before Indian Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi and represented her country at a World Youth Festival in Russia. “(My Guruji) was not at all surprised, I guess he knew something neither my parents nor I did.” She also learnt from the famed Kalanidhi Narayanan, which she emphatically describes as a ‘real revelation’.

The experience of the NRI (Non-Resident Indian) has been characterised in countless novels and films over the last decade, and Subramanian’s experience has been characteristic of the traumatic shock that can take place when plucked out of the familiar and replanted in a strange country as a married woman. “I was performing in India, then a month later arrived in freezing Boston. I was too young. A lot of people think America is great – the standard of living and everything, but for me I wasn’t very interested. I thought within a few years I would go back to India.”

Two decades, thirty-eight arangetrams, a Masters degree, a divorce and another marriage later, she is still living in the States, now able to celebrate the twentieth anniversary of her dance school, Lasya, and a steady performance career that has garnered solid appreciation from Chennai critics and the broader international audience alike. With her children almost grown, she has been phasing out her teaching and is now looking forward to a new era as a dedicated performer and choreographer.

WINTER 2012 PULSE 17

VIdYhA Subramanian

DANCE IN THE COMMUNITY

Vandana

Hertfordshire-based independent dance artist, Divya Kasturi, shares her experience in creating a piece for the children in her local community.

Words by Divya Kasturi

V

“my guru used to say that there are few dancers who have the ‘it factor’ ”.

18 PULSE WINTER 2012

It hasn’t been easy to maintain a performance career over the years. The US is notoriously tricky to navigate for resident artists. “We are trishankus, stuck between the two worlds. In the US we are considered local artists, and in India, outside artists. It takes that much longer to be considered seriously,” says Subramanian, admitting that performing every year in Chennai is a great help to getting work noticed among a discerning audience.

Her pieces have been consistently lauded, most recently the solo OJAS (‘with that spiritual energy I yearn’), that explores what drove three saint poetesses to their spiritual goal. She will present this piece as part of a more traditional margam this December in London and Liverpool.

I ask her what she thinks her guru saw in her all those years ago, and whether this unique quality is what she feels defines her today. With humility she says: “My guru used to say that there are few dancers who have the ‘it factor’. There is simply no other way to describe it – he would say it in Tamil – literally the word ‘it’.” After the glut of TV talent shows, the phrase now smacks of flash-in-thepan fame, but Subramanian is proof that humble hard work, tenacity and talent win in the end. She looks forward to meeting the UK audiences and to spending more time in India again. “I want to make up for all the lost time, for the twenty years that I have missed working in that cultural cauldron. This is a process of discovery that I hope will never end – it is so much fun!”

andana translates as ‘salutation’ and true to the word, my young, enthusiastic and eager group of students did receive a stupendous warm ‘salutation’ for their efforts in performing Vandana. The occasion was ‘Celebrate’, an event organised by the Stevenage World Forum in association with the local borough at the Gordon Craig Theatre on 27 October 2012.

The piece evolved from my experience of training a group of young ‘boy band’ singers, as I call them. Aged between four and a half to six years, they have a newlyfound interest in learning carnatic vocals and have been taking lessons with me since March this year.

As an artist treading both fields of dance and music, I have always been fascinated about combining both strands – I have experimented with singing while dancing on the very same stage of Gordon Craig Theatre last year in my piece This or that?, as well as in a section of my recent production, NowHere.

In the case of Indian music and dance, there is an intertwined relationship which I stress the importance of to my own students.

Thereby almost all of them learn both dance and music, with the exception of the ‘boy band’. Dancers need to understand music while singing for dance enables better emotion in the music. My guru Udupi Laxminarayana (Chennai) comes from the illustrious Balasaraswati tradition of dance and is renowned for her musical talents as well. Thus, seizing the opportunity that the kids were bestowed in their own home town almost on their doorsteps, Vandana was conceptualised. The idea was also to instil the seeds of supporting each other and to give the little ones the experience of dancing to live vocals as opposed to their usual way of dancing to recordings. Thus ten dancers danced to nine vocalists.

My initial idea was also to have radio mikes for the dancers, but finances played a major role as always!

Personally, this was also my first experience creating a piece for nineteen kids all performing at the same time. The creation was done in groups initially before I brought them together. Again, thanks to local community leaders like Janis Daniel, who kindly helped me with rehearsal space.

My heartfelt gratitude also goes to the excellent support from the parents of my students, what with them accommodating my own erratic schedules, considering my professional and personal commitments. The whole experience was a mixed bag of emotions – it was exhausting but exhilarating – every drop of sweat, energy and anxiety was worth it!

What a wondrous pleasure it was to witness the next generation boldly encounter the 500-odd audience with full vigour, energy and humility.

Three cheers to the singers and dancers, some of whom had their stage debut in Vandana.

Singers: Nilesh, Akshath, Amitav, Siddharth, Gautham, Vidhyuth, Dhruv, Kanishk and Swetha.

Dancers: Diya, Krithika, Hridya, Bruhashmy, Ananya, Sagrika, Mahi, Sandhya, Srimoyi and Aadya.

Here is what some of them have to say about the experience— Sandhya: “I love dancing, especially the song ‘Rama Namo’.

We all had a lot of fun learning to dance and also dressing-up.

I learnt about the Gods and also made a lot of friends. Thank you, Divya Akka.”

Aadya: “I am very happy that I can perform. I can perform because it’s a very nice place and I get to dress up too!”

Diya: “I am very thankful that I have been given this opportunity to perform in such a grand event and it has been a pleasure working with all my friends and creating this piece as a group.”

DANCE FESTIVAL / PERFORMANCE — REVIEWS

Dance Festival Postcard from the Netherlands 13–20 October 2012 India Dans Festival Korzo, The Hague, Netherlands Written by Meher Khan Murtaz

T

he excitement is almost tangible in the lounge of The Hague’s Korzo Theater. It is playtime for the Indian dancers in the Netherlands. The annual India Dans Festival, held in October, is unique of its kind.

As a dancer, this is a long week enjoying what you usually do over the weekend. It is also the hub of a nicely mixed audience – young and old, men and women from a diversity of backgrounds who come to see their sister, daughter or granddaughter.

Others have come to see their favourite performance art.

The programme comprises dance performances by professionals and amateurs reflecting the diversity of Indian dance – classical, contemporary and everything in-between. There

Revanta Sarabhai | Photo: Robert Benschop

is the Indian Dance Battle, named after the favourite television programme The Ultimate Dance Battle; and films documenting the classic Indian dance styles and workshops, one of which is led by bharatanatyam dancer, choreographer and curator, Dr Anita Ratnam. There is a performance with Monalisa Ghosh and Dutch students trained by her, and a concert by Shubhankar Chatterjee pleases the ears of the audibly-oriented among us, but for me, the highlight of the week is Rising by Aakash Odedra, the young artist’s first performance in the Netherlands. The audience was thrilled to see Odedra take to the stage; a real ambassador for the form who represents the ambition of the dancers in the audience.

The number of dancers practising bharatanatyam, kathak, odissi, kuchipudi or Bollywood in the Netherlands diminished

in the early twenty-first century but it is slowly rising again. The Bollywood dance schools have, by far, the largest number of students, closely followed by the bharatanatyam. Most of the students are in their twenties, practising and performing on a regular basis. There are few Dutch choreographers who are known to be exploring the borders of their art, but those who do continue to surprise their audiences with new material which is inspired by narrative, music or the body language of other styles. The Korzo Theater is not only the venue of the India Dans Festival but also the creative base of artist-in-residence Kalpana Raghuraman where she is supported in collaborating with modern dancers as well as performers of Indian dance. For the past two years she has produced performances with dancers of Indian origin. This has contributed a great deal to the development of their skills and sense of self.

Nevertheless, there are reasons for concern. Due to recent political changes, a few theatres that supported and programmed Indian dance must close their doors at the end of this year. This will mean a complete loss of easily accessible stage experience for the amateur dancers. It will also mean less opportunity for the audience to see Indian dance performed at a professional level. If the tide changes again, a lot of effort will be needed to build up their experience and the audience has to expand. However, the small and fragile dance community knows its ups and downs. Stepping out of the parampara into new and sometimes daring territory is not always embraced by everyone. In the Netherlands another element of attention is the artistic level of the dance forms. Dancers of innovative Indian dance are more highlytrained in the United Kingdom than in the Netherlands. More support should be given to dancers and choreographers in order to allow their talent to blossom. The English experience should provide even more motivation.

The annual India Dans Festival means a lot to those practising Indian dance who have long and strong roots in Dutch soil. Over the years this has involved a relatively small group of dedicated dancers who perform and adapt their choreographies, training others and working with musicians, light technicians, dramatists and directors. Moreover, the confident and spirited attitude of the younger

generation gives hope for the future. They have seen different dance styles on and offline. They do not hesitate to express their wishes and goals and they are willing to put an effort into getting what they want. What they need is guidance and encouragement in getting there and opportunities to develop their skills in different areas. The festival is not only a presentation of the current state of the scene of Indian dance but also an inspiring fountain of new ideas and possibilities and a feel-good event for those pioneering Indian dance in the Netherlands and for those watching it.

Dance Performance Gait to the Spirit 2012 26-28 October 2012 Mandala Arts and Culture Scotiabank Dance Centre, Vancouver, Canada Reviewed by Scheherazaad Cooper

T

his past weekend (26– 28 October), I had the pleasure of attending the third annual Gait to the Spirit Festival of Indian classical dance in Vancouver, BC, Canada. Organised by Jai Govinda, the artistic director of Mandala Arts & Culture society and a renowned bharatanatyam dancer himself, the festival aims to showcase classical dance from around the world while also providing a platform for up-and-coming local artists.

This year’s festival presented an eclectic mix of dancers, featuring Shalini Patnaik (odissi, USA), Savitha Sastry (bharatanatyam, India/USA), Malavika Santosh (bharatanatyam, Canada), and the UK’s own Aakash Odedra (kathak). As always, the festival was punctuated by a lecture demonstration and a master‑class for local dancers.

The festival opened with a feature double bill between Shalini Patnaik and Aakash Odedra. Patnaik hails from California and has trained primarily with the Orissa Dance Academy. As the opener of the festival, Patnaik showcased odissi by presenting a range of items choreographed in different eras.

Patnaik presented each of her pieces with grace and agility.

The standout moment of her performance was the ending of her second piece: traditionally a slow walk off the stage, Patnaik

chose to walk a few steps and then hold her position in a beautiful and elastic moment of tension as the lights faded to black.

The second half of the evening opened to the sound of dragging ghungroo (ankle bells), as a dark figure entered the stage. Odedra began his performance with his own choreography, Jiya, which interpreted the life and trials of the tawaif or court dancer within the performance of a piece in line with their own lost repertoire.

This piece was the highlight of the festival as Odedra moved easily through dynamic stillness to expressive movement, not only sharing the story of the pining woman but embodying the music in such a way that it seemed to spill from his fingers, through his eyes, and from his very pores as he searched the darkness for his beloved. He then performed two choreographies by Kumudhini Lakhia: one technical piece in dhamaar and one expressive piece, Barse Baderia – whether intentional or not, the performance of a piece about dancing in the rain in a notoriously rainy city was delightfully apt.

Odedra closed the night in a piece exploring Sufi kathak.

Day two of the festival included an afternoon lecture demonstration by Odedra and an evening performance by Savitha Sastry. Presenting a margam or traditional bharatanatyam repertoire, spectators were treated to the skilful ease afforded to a performer in her prime. Sastry truly hit her stride in the second half of the performance with a narrative piece exploring the relationship between a mother and young daughter, and a Hindi-language narrative dance elaborating on the love story of Radha and Krishna as they are caught in a teasing match attempting to elicit love-confessions from one another. Sastry expertly conjured the environments in which her pieces took place, where a little girl, although never represented, was made visible by the braiding of her hair, the chiding of her actions, or the soothing of her tear-stained face by Sastry’s gentle mother-character; or a maiden was trapped by a herd of wayward cows. Sastry also led a two-day workshop/master‑class in bharatanatyam.

The third, and final, day of the festival showcased up-andcoming local artist, Malavika Santosh, a graduate of the WINTER 2012 PULSE 19

DANCE PERFORMANCE — REVIEWS

Jai Govinda Dance Academy.

Santosh presented a brand-new repertoire choreographed by Govinda almost exclusively for this performance. She shook off the nerves of closing the festival and presented her repertoire with dedication and enthusiasm.

Santosh focused on the various aspects of the mother-goddess.

Vancouver audiences have the pleasure of witnessing the journey, as Santosh continues to develop as a performer. She possesses a flexibility that allows her performance to be full of exquisite shapes as well as the strength and poise to hold them to their potential and I look forward to seeing where this young artist will take her work in the future.

One question that arises in the presentation of traditional repertoire is how much, and how best, to introduce the material of a piece to the spectators. In this festival some artists chose preperformance announcements, while others chose to speak at the corner of the stage through a microphone, and others still left the explanations to the programme and left only darkness between their pieces.

What struck me as awkward in some of the choices of pre-piece narration was the length and language used. Whether or not information is presented before a piece or in programme notes, arguably what is important is their contribution to a spectator’s understanding of the work. If explanations are constructed with lofty and arcane language, then they may contribute to the alienation that they are attempting to alleviate. I would ask artists to consider the way they introduce their work and, regardless of what they end up deciding, stand firmly behind those choices because they have made them and not inherited them as the ‘accepted’ way.

What is most commendable about Gait to the Spirit is its potential to cultivate spectatorship. Thanks to Govinda, Vancouver now has regular access to world-class Indian classical dance and that is no small feat. Next year’s festival is already lined up, so if you’re going to be in Vancouver around the end of October 2013, get your tickets! For more information about the Gait to the Spirit Festival or Mandala Arts & Culture Society please visit: www.mandalarts.ca.

20 PULSE WINTER 2012

Much Ado About Nothing 27 September 2012 Royal Shakespeare Company Noel Coward Theatre, London Reviewed by Khan&Kemlo

I

qbal Khan’s Much Ado About Nothing, which recently transferred from Stratford to the Noel Coward Theatre in the West End, is part of the Royal Shakespeare Company’s international Shakespeare season. It seems fitting, then, that Shakespeare’s comedy be given the South Asian makeover by the RSC, following this year’s all-black Julius Caesar.

John Barton’s 1976 version of Much Ado took place in an Indian garrison during the British Raj; Khan’s interpretation, however,

Much Ado About Nothing | Photo: Ellie Kurttz

is the first to offer a post-colonial context, symbolised by blue beretdonning Indian soldiers returning from a UN peacekeeping mission.

The predominant themes of love, marriage, family and courtship on the face of it correlate completely with an Indian cultural setting, indeed a hip jiggle in the Bollywood direction. After Julius Caesar, one might ask whether the job of making Shakespeare relevant to a modern multicultural society is one of simply finding suitable ethnicities for suitable plays.

However, these re-conceptions are nothing new and, in essence, when Shakespeare specifies Denmark, Verona or Tyre in his stage directions, they are very often nothing more than detail. In this sense the South Asian setting functions as a kind of decorative imagery, adding a colour to Shakespeare’s creative canvas which was not there before.

The pleasingly Asiandominated audience on gala night, as well as everyone else in the audience, would have been entirely familiar with the subcontinental culture displayed on stage tonight.

The production introduces Meera Syal to the stage for the first time, playing the part of Beatrice alongside fellow former Goodness

Gracious Me co-star Kulvinder Ghir, who plays Borachio. These household name television stars added a new dimension to Shakespeare’s comedy.

Tom Piper’s impressive set, recreating a bustling Indian city, allowed the actors to improvise a hilarious introduction prior to the play which, in turn, gave them the excuse to interact with the audience. The sound designer, Andrew Franks, added a wonderful atmosphere whereby the honk of the tuk tuks and the call of the birds, constantly reaching over the walls of the set, created an Indian soundscape to match the landscape of modern Delhi.

The comedy of Much Ado dances around the games of courtship, and the way characters play hide-and-seek with their feelings; most significantly the characters of Beatrice and Benedict, played by Paul Bhattacharjee in this production. This behaviour is contrasted, to striking comic effect, with the overly-exaggerated Indian humour reminiscent of a Bollywood movie which allows for extreme caricatures, epitomised by the maid played by Anjana Vasan, to general amusement.

Those of the lower orders are often seen larking around on stage, offering entertaining slapstick and regular mutterings in Hindi and Punjabi (not unlike the lives of Chowkidar in the many middleclass homes of India and Pakistan) are interwoven with the action.

This keeps the amusement levels high, but sometimes interrupts the flow of the play. The Bollywood dance routine in the second half, which comes before the wedding, is an exception to this rule. A stand-out moment, where the Indian conceit truly embellishes the Shakespearean original. Niraj Chag, the London-based composer, offers superb music throughout, played by live musicians and singers.

Unscripted musical interludes and comical asides, however, all contribute to the play’s slightly excessive three-and-a-quarterhour duration, undoing the tension that is essential to a romantic comedy.

Ultimately, however, for all the aptness of a translocation, staging a Shakespeare play still depends almost entirely on the language. Every minute or two lost, where one zones out of the spoken word, following the action instead through physical comedy and sight gags, is a lost metaphor or expression from Shakespeare’s rich and dense verse. This is partly

a result of bold directorial decisions to introduce sight gags, mime and modern technology (Beatrice overhears Bharti Patel’s Verges, for example, on a Smartphone) to modernise the action. Often the dialogue is humorously decorated with Hindi and colloquialisms such as nahi yaar, chalo, and one could hear the word ‘son’ substituted for the Punjabi Puttar in one of Leonato’s dialogues. These additions are certainly funny, in their own right, but one has to ask whether they have served the text.

Although the humour was well received by the audience, at times the ethnic gimmicks added to the post-Goodness Gracious Me and the Bollywoodesque clichés became quite tiresome. Furthermore, the marriage of an Indian setting to this particular Shakespearean play is both strategic and an example of intentional coincidence. That it is common for British society to presuppose the old classic stereotype, that Indian society is a culture obsessed with family ties, notions of izzat and long-winded Shaadi rituals and festivals.

Regarding the acting performances, Syal’s feisty, witty, brittle Beatrice makes an excellent foil for Bhattacharjee’s idly intelligent banter. Amara Karan offered a dignified Hero; she bore her unfair disgrace with so much poise that one longed for a more twenty-first-century resistance.

Madhav Sharma stood out as Leonato, a fond but potentially dangerously deluded father to Hero, first betrothing and then threatening to kill his innocent daughter. The RSC’s Indian relocation of Shakespeare’s comedy is riotous and bombastic, and does at least present the ultimately very contemporary message: agitate for change, for equality in the wedding partnership, and the timeless message of the eternity of love.

Kabaddi, Kabaddi, Kabaddi 9 November 2012 Kali Theatre Mercury Theatre, Colchester Reviewed by Sita Thomas

“We’re playing Kabaddi, not politics.”

“It’s not a game.”

“What if that’s all it is?”

G

ames, politics and personal and national identity are inseparably

DANCE PERFORMANCE — REVIEWS

intertwined in Satinder Chohan’s new play Kabaddi Kabaddi Kabaddi. The play, co-produced

by Kali Theatre and Pursued by a Bear Productions, examines two time periods, two countries and six characters through the conceit of the popular Indian sport Kabaddi.

The first half of the action is set in London 2012, where the basic set of a construction of scaffolding serves as the playingfield for Shera’s dominating presence as he harbours illegal immigrants Eshwar and Azadeh.

They are all connected through a history of Kabaddi-playing: Shera’s great ambition is to win Olympic gold as his ancestors did; Eshwar, reluctant to join Shera in Club UK taps into his muscle memory, trying once more to ‘breathe Kabaddi deep’; and Azadeh struggles with both her flair for the sport and flinching fear of male violence.

Chohan captures cleverly the ironies and complexities of British Asian identity with wit and depth. In a scene where the trio have broken into the Olympic Stadium past the lax security post-Games, Shera soaks up imaginary roars of the crowd. With great dignity and pride, he steps up onto the victory podium (a bag of chapatti flour) and receives his gold medal and garland of flowers (a pot of coriander), singing the British national anthem in his DesiLondon accent. Shera relishes the power of his status as British, derogatively admonishing the ‘freshies’, fresh off the boat, taking advantage of their dependence on his opportunities luring them into battles of will and Kabaddi.

The second act travels back through the generations to Punjab, India in 1936. With an angular shift of the scaffolding construction and its decking in coloured cotton bunting, the

Kabaddi, Kabaddi, Kabaddi | Photo: Jerome Hunt

set becomes a shanty deck in Punjab glowing in an orange wash of light. Here Pavan and Fauji practise their sport in the

Akhara, hoping to be picked for the team going to demonstrate Kabaddi at the Berlin Olympics.

Azadeh returns from her political imprisonment but prepares once more to fight for her freedom, and it is to her utter shame that she discovers Fauji wearing shorts made in Manchester and joining the British ranks.

Helena Bell’s direction excels in its simplicity and showcases the actors’ abilities through their focused interpersonal relations. Shalini Peiris gives two strong and defined portrayals as Azadeh across the generations.

She begins as a ruffled-haired, bare-footed immigrant girl and transforms into a confident, shining-eyed independent woman. Asif Khan, expertly playing Eshwar and Fauji, is solemnly understated in his battle through hardship and turmoil. Pushpinder Chani revels in thrusting his hand through his Bollywood locks as both Shera and Pavan, although his boundless energy and overt confidence could be reined in to give a more nuanced performance.

The production doesn’t quite deliver what the writing promises: if one closes one’s eyes and listens to the low rumblings of the characters’ breath, ‘Kabaddi Kabaddi Kabaddi’, the well-designed music by Arun Ghosh, the stamping of feet and slapping of bodies, then the images of the red dust rising in the Akhara that the mind conjures are much more rich than those painted by the bodies on stage. There is a battle between the naturalistic and the symbolic and although Jasmine Simhalan’s choreography captures the rough and tumble of tactics, a stronger commitment to the realistic or symbolic would result in a more firmly-rooted depiction of the beautiful and brutal sport.

This year, the South Asian contribution to the arts in Britain has been celebrated on a global scale in relation to the Olympics and Cultural Olympiad. Chohan continues this work with her deft dramatisation of the connections between Olympic sport and British and Indian socio-political histories infused with personal plights. Topically relevant, it tackles issues of present-day Asian diasporic experience as well as finding a deep connection to the past through spiritual and ancestral roots. As part

of Kali Theatre’s 21st birthday celebrations this production will run for a week in London at the Arcola Theatre. I urge viewers to support this important and groundbreaking work to ensure that such beautifully told stories reach a wider public domain and excite the British consciousness.

practicality becomes a necessity to house, feed and educate a better future in a new land. A storyboard telling their ages from industrial to technological evolution contributing to a relationship of parallel existence and purpose.

Be Like Water 28 November 2012 Hetain Patel ROH2, Covent Garden, London Reviewed by Vipul Bhatti

H

ow much of us is found in others?

For visual artist, choreographer and performer Hetain Patel, his discoveries take to the philosophy of his childhood hero, martial artist Bruce Lee: “Empty your mind, be formless. Shapeless like water.”

Patel’s Be Like Water is in collaboration with Taiwanese dancer Yuyu Rau and, taking centre stage, he (Patel) speaks in Mandarin Chinese and she (Rau) translates in English. The purpose of this exercise? To step outside himself.

Their introductory presentation, a scripted dialogue of making assumptions and confused identities is sharp, agile and prompt, the mannerisms one would expect from those entering combat.

Rau transforms into a warrior, her demure physicality flows as ink does to a quill’s nib, dancing her words across a stage that has laid out as a formidable scroll.

Patel’s initial interaction is gawky; this story is re-enacting childhood memories, of a dreamer who looked up to becoming Bruce Lee or Spiderman. The virtues of these prolific figures were fantastical but his account here, now, returns to his reality, his Northern roots, even if displaced.

Their stage has cameras positioned at various points, a borderline invitation for forensic analysis and voyeuristic ritual, to capture self-exploration and a confused sense of belonging.

Two large portable screens provide a cinematic experience, displaying the performers’ theatrical antics and a pre-filmed presentation of Patel’s father at work, in a car manufacturer’s factory.

What unfurls is a tale of individual expressionism capturing the generational difference between father and son. Where

Be Like Water | Photo: Jean van Lingen

This reflection is one of social identity conflicting with inner identity and beauty – that becomes life’s quest to discover – with the given objective for man to become a machinist to create for his own survival.

Rau and Patel appear odd together, yet their compatibility smoothes and roughens the other’s characteristic edges. They could be Adam and Eve, Rama and Sita, Antony and Cleopatra, or even Amitabh and Rekha.

They are accompanied by Ling Peng on the erhu and Guzheng, who at one point is requested to play to give a feeling of being Chinese; and digital artist Barret Hodgson. From their outskirts they bolster the stage with energy and effects.

There is the occasional use of a prop, a meter ruler, and with their minds it transforms into a samurai sword from a stick they instruct with, as an old-school teacher would.

While pouring out with philosophy of self-learned discoveries, Patel dabbles as a desired modern hero casually sparked within his own central nervous system.

There is an earlier moment when he takes to a spotlight with Rau behind him, her arms slide underneath his and gesticulate with delicate proficiency.

This brief poetic soliloquy takes on a striking attitude of an Akram Khanism: a fashion of quirky self-expression interplayed with multiple layering of speech and non-verbal communication in verbatim.

The film footage of Patel’s father at work is one of two humble moments. Patel senior guides the audience on the happenings in his working life. The recording gives a sense of gritty reality of life beyond idealism that an artist may indulge WINTER 2012 PULSE 21

REVIEWS — DANCE PERFORMANCE / MUSIC PERFORMANCE

in but through art becomes a visual proverb. His father is his maker, and in his own right, a creative too.

His guided tour gives explanations of parts, fittings and assembling of a mechanical body, to one day becoming a mode of transport.

Just as the human body, transporting expression for the meaning of life, relating to humanity and touching a soul, Patel’s point here is that we are made of many parts.

Others create us and we also make ourselves. What it takes to understand the elements of self-manufacturing that give recognition to who we really are.

The second humbling experience sees Patel waving the ruler as a magical tool, which, with technological sorcery displays words in the air. Patel confesses with the honour of a warrior, words any father would be proud to hear, to be just like his father. As Bruce Lee once said: “If you put water into a cup, it becomes the cup. You put water into a bottle it becomes the bottle.” Considering the human body is about 70 per cent water – we are almost full cups ourselves – Patel and Rau successfully give transparency with Be Like Water in random parts.

The essence of their questioning is: Whose words do we lead by, to speak what the world can see us as?

Music Performance Double Bill: Pulsating Sursingar and Violin maestros Joydeep Ghosh and the Mysore Brothers 27 September 2012 Darbar Festival Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London Reviewed by Jahnavi Harrison

and has not-often-heard rich bass tones that are reminiscent of Japanese stringed instruments like the junanagen. In the formidable hands of Ghosh it was a toy – long, ‘one-pluck’ held notes with subtlest ornamentation; languidly gliding over the fingerboard, yet with surgical precision as far as pitch. In the alap his oscillations murmured like a conversation between lovers, evoking gasps from the audience. Credit to the sound engineers for being able to pick it all up. The later jor and jhalla evoked a river as the sunset meets the water, creating a blaze of gold – this was dazzling playing, including the absolute treat of Shubh Maharaj’s tabla accompaniment. It was an electric combination that had the audience laughing in disbelief as the two anticipated each other’s rhythmic changes. Riveting.

Next came the turn of the Mysore brothers. Amazingly, this was their UK debut, although they are world-renowned as virtuosos of the Carnatic violin.

They started with a deep yet delightful composition in Ragam Kanada, moving to ‘Sadapalaya’ in Mohanam. Their strident bowing seemed to carve the music out of the instruments, and not even their rapid-fire fingering or strings breaking could upset their composed presence. Besides their astounding musicianship, they were absolutely charming – like two South Indian Groucho Marx lookalikes, they clearly deeply relished each other’s playing in that uniquely Indian way – shaking their heads, tutting, raising their eyebrows and emitting a disgusted-sounding ‘hah!’ every few minutes. They moved to Ragam Purvikalyani where the endlessly inventive phrases were executed at a devilish speed. The final piece was a Charukeshi ragam tanam pallavi.

Both sober and spellbinding, it rose to an epic, mind-boggling crescendo, aided by the fantastic mridangam of Srimushnam Raja

D

arbar’s reputation as the most diverse, high-quality Indian music festival outside of India was upheld by its cracking first night. After a late start, Joydeep Ghosh took to the stage.

He is not a big name and his hefty instrument, the sursringar, is even less known. Tuning took quite some time and the mixed audience shifted in their seats a little, but once he really started playing, all were captivated. The sursringar is the older brother of the sarod,

22 PULSE WINTER 2012

Mysore Brothers | Photo: Arnhel de Serra

Rao and ghatam of RN Prakash. It was unfortunate that the concert went on so long that the staff turned on the lights and people

began to leave, but this will surely not be the last time we see these two in the UK.

Chitravina Ravikiran 29 September 2012 Darbar Festival Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London Reviewed by Ken Hunt

S

outh Indian music has long-standing naming conventions not encountered in its Hindustani cousin in the north of the subcontinent. In Carnatic music, caste and personal names develop prehensile attributes and grow extensions. One convention places a little geography up front – a birthplace or a work base – such as the violinist Kunnakudi Vaidyanathan’s addition of his birthplace. Another adds their tool of work, such as Mandolin Srinivas. In Ravikiran’s case, his is the comparatively rare instrument

Chitravina Ravikiran | Photo: Simon Richardson

with which his family has been associated for several generations.

Chitravina or veena derives from veena, a generic word for a stringed instrument (although it also functions as a proper noun, as in the case of the Hindustani vocalist Veena Sahasrabuddhe), and the adjectival chitra, in a context such as this meaning ‘wonderful’, ‘wondrous’, ‘magnificent’ and the like. (For a while the term gottuvadyam displaced the earlier chitravina.)

It is an unfretted instrument with raised strings played with a slide – historically made of buffalo horn or turned ebony, nowadays of Teflon. The right hand uses a combination of digits and metal picks called nahangal in Tamil, meaning ‘nails’. Together they create voices and voicings that are part-human and part-theremin eeriness. Ravikiran introduced chitravina along the lines of closing one’s eyes and hearing a beautiful girl singing, then opening them and seeing him.

When he first performed

in Britain in the early 1990s, Ravikiran brought his grandfather’s exquisite chitravina with its carved dragon-like yazhi head – yazhi is a mythical Tamil monster – and delicate voice. At over a century in age, because of frailty and a dislike of travelling long distances, it now resides in Chennai and is only taken out on car or train journeys. At the Darbar Festival he played the navachitraveena, a sturdier, more portable model designed

by Ravikiran in 1999/2000 and realised by the Delhi-based instrument-maker Rikhi Ram. It has six main, three drone and eleven resonance strings.

Accompanying on the South’s trademark double-headed barrel drum was the mridangam vidwan (maestro) Dr. Yella Venkateswar Rao (Ravikiran: “a veteran from Hyderabad”) who balances the economical and the ecstatic. His playing proved worth the epithet magical. The third musician on the stage was Jyotsna Srikanth, a violinist whose melodic underpinning, call and response and solos impressed mightily.

The opener was an unnamed Doraisami Iyer composition in ragam Nattai in the all-purpose adi tala (an eight-beat cycle). It worked as a good introductory piece for the chitravina and the ensemble alike. As did the saint-composer Tyagaraja’s unnamed composition in Pantuvamli in a cycle of threes (roopakam, not to be confused with Hindustani music’s rupak taal in sevens) that followed. It included a splendid passage in which the chitravina’s Wild Mouse ride side went on display.

Prattyush Banerjee 30 September 2012 Darbar Festival Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London Reviewed by Jahnavi Harrison

D

arbar founder Sandeep Virdee has been outspoken in his desire to present lesser-known talents each year.

‘Unveiling Afternoon Ragas’ was hardly the most exciting title of this final day afternoon session, but what ensued definitely was.

Hailing from Kolkata, sarod maestro Prattyush Banerjee stood at the entrance of the auditorium, gently greeting audience members. Though relatively young, his reputation

MUSIC PERFORMANCE — REVIEWS

Prattyush Banerjee | Photo: Courtesy of the Artist

seemed to precede him. The hall was packed out, including an encouraging front row of senior musicians like Ustad Dharambir Singh and Pt. Swapan Chaudhuri.

Banerjee spent most of the concert unravelling an alap/jor/bandish in ‘Raag Patdeep’. His manner was perfectly serene, his playing simultaneously precise and restrained, yet richly evocative.

One of the joys of the fretless instrument is its fluid bends.

Banerjee’s lyrical movement prompted head-nodding in the front row, to which he offered shy smiles. His composed presence allowed the purity of the music to shine through, rather than the personality which is so often at the forefront on the music stage.

Accompanied by the crisp and punchy tabla of Sanju Sahai, he showed delightful ingenuity, improvising on the bandish with melodic drop-offs and slides that were just as joyously breathtaking as being thrown in the air as a baby. He concluded with ‘Raag Sindura’, which he announced modestly as ‘a notso-popular afternoon melody’.

Giving it a hypnotic lilt in rupak taal, it finished with a restrained decrescendo rather than the usual explosive tihai. Oh, and a standing ovation. Not bad for an afternoon.

Shujaat Khan & Swapan Chaudhuri 30 September 2012 Darbar Festival Purcell Room, Southbank Centre, London Reviewed by Ken Hunt

T

he previous afternoon Swapan Chaudhuri, the tabla-player of choice for the sarod maestro Ali Akbar Khan (1922–2009) in his last years, delivered an exquisite solo tabla concert – with harmonium providing melodic support to rhythm instrument in the accompaniment reversal known as lehara. Shujaat Khan sat in the first row dead centre in front of Swapan Chaudhuri. It was a rapturous and

educative recital – and it must have fed Shujaat Khan’s mind with possibilities for their Sunday morning duet. At the finish, Khan self-effacingly asked who would be accompanying who the next day.

Complimenting the audience who had made the early 10am start, he deadpanned: “I wouldn’t have been here if I wasn’t playing.”

Even tuning his sitar, one made by the Delhi-based instrumentmaker Ajay Sharma about a dozen years ago, had a special moment in a peripheral way with a melodic fragment line that sparkled like an alpine rivulet. He announced Alhaiya Bilaval – a nine to noon rāg – that I cannot consciously recall ever having seen performed live. Pondering this afterwards, it was recordings by the likes of Kishori Amonkar, Kala Ramnath and Shruti Sadolikar-Kalkar that struck me.

His alap – the mood-setting movement that acquaints musician and audience with the ‘note characters’ – moved slowly, easy like Sunday morning, with him getting full value out of the notes, a full measure of the timbral and tonal with an emotional heft. Eyes mainly closed, his left hand would shape the notes while his right hand was often held in repose.

Notes came and were allowed to linger and decay. The audience, especially the front rows that the performers can see without

Shujaat Khan | Photo: Daniel M. Neuman

straining, acted like weather vanes indicating how things were going with egging-on murmurs and approving hand gestures. He would occasionally ‘surface’ to silently acknowledge these with a hand gesture to the forehead.

As the exposition progressed, the logicality of his resolutions also came mixed with ‘outof-nowhere’ solutions. That combination of the logical and the unpredictable was impressive – as in really impressive. By the time he finished, he had incorporated two compositions, both without name – the first by him, the second by his father, the sitar maestro Vilayat Khan. He had also played lehara to Swapan

Chaudhuri’s tabla, leaning in attentively, watching his hands.

In terms of inventiveness, as they say in some Christian circles, his exposition touched the hem of the garment.

To conclude, he sang a folkflavoured air straight out of the subcontinental lullaby canon, accompanying himself – in a similarly bare style vocally and instrumentally to the sarangi maestro Sultan Khan when he sang the Rajasthani lullaby ‘Soja re’. It was superb. Afterwards, he admitted it had no title and it was a Hindi composition of his own.

The opening words will have to do: ‘Aaja re nindiya.’

The Great British Gharana

The first half concluded with a sitar recital by Mehboob Nadeem accompanied by his student Akash Patel. I was excited to see the interaction between teacher and student – both complemented each other brilliantly well on stage. The dynamics between the two were perfectly balanced, with Akash being given ample room for his own improvisation, in which he displayed some very intricate embellishments particularly in his meands.

The second half of the concert opened with Roopa Panesar’s sitar solo. One could completely relax into her music. She effortlessly displayed speed, layakari and variation, all with such humble ease. After a first half that ran seriously over time, acts from the second half started to get

23 November 2012 Various Queen Elizabeth Hall, Southbank Centre, London Reviewed by Archita Kumar

T

he Great British Gharana was a showcase of budding and established performers of Indian classical music living in the UK. For anyone who may be unfamiliar with the term gharana, it is used to identify different sub-styles of Indian classical music and dance. The name of a gharana is usually derived from its geographical origin and is characterised by distinct stylistic traits and compositions unique to that style. In order for it to be recognised in its own right, it needs to have stood the test of time by being passed down a lineage or by apprenticeship for several generations.

The evening opened with Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan’s Carnatic group with veenas perfectly in unison. As the performers changed to the next group one got the feeling this may end up being yet another variety show of ensembles. But I was very pleasantly surprised with what came next. Like a breath of fresh air, Jessica Mistry quickly sucked the audience into an oasis of calm with her hamsadhwani bansuri solo, displaying an experienced control over the instrument and tonal variation. Members of SAMYO then joined Jessica for Rain: the tabla now tuned to a pakhawaj pitch evoked the sense of thunder and gave the piece real theatrical panache.

Roopa Panesar | Photo: East West Photography

curtailed. But I was glad we had the chance to hear Rasikpriya School of Music. An all-male quartet dressed in traditional South Indian attire, they were probably the strongest ensemble of the evening. Their tayari and coordination were superb. With all four members of equal standing and energy, these guys rocked the Carnatic repertoire with gusto.

Equally inspiring were the all-male Singh Strings Ensemble. It was so refreshing to hear the santoor and a pleasant surprise when the santoorist doubled up as a vocalist.

Though their piece appeared to end abruptly, most likely due to time constraints, their lively performance was a great way to end the evening.

In terms of presentation, the sound quality and engineering from start to finish was excellent. Use of IT tools, namely the projector screen, provided an efficient means of introducing the names of the performers. However, with little spoken introduction and a lack of programme notes, the projector could have also been utilised to provide descriptions of the pieces and their ragam/talam information, benefiting those of us in the audience who may not be familiar with the entire repertoire.

Milapfest should be applauded for pulling together teachers WINTER 2012 PULSE 23

REVIEWS — CD RELEASE

and performers from various parts of the country, facilitating a network for them to work and train together. They brought to the main stage talent which in some cases was hidden in the confines of community art centres. As I left the Queen Elizabeth Hall I wondered – was the Great British Gharana a representation of, as Milapfest put it, an emerging ‘international gharana’? Based on the aforementioned criteria, the answer was no. But what I did witness was the arrival of a very bright, promising, modest generation of British Indian classical musicians that we can proudly call our own.

CD Release Abdulkarim Raas & Kuljit Bhamra present Somali Party Southall August 2012 Somali Party Southall Keda Records Reviewed by Ken Hunt

F

rom its opening flourish, Hobey Hobey Heleyoy (‘Come Sing and Dance’) with its blend of Punjabi and Somali ingredients, the pretty much unerring plus ça change philosophical logic of Somali Party Southall is bracing. Southall to the west of London was one of the first districts settled by post-war South Asian immigrants. Close to the then-London Airport, now Heathrow, like nearby Cranford and Hounslow’s ‘under the flight path’ overspills, Southall’s proximity to the airport promised work, much of it requiring only basic English. In the grand moniker tradition of immigration, Southall became voilà! Little Punjab.

The corny-as-kitsch, selfmythologising Glassy Junction – ‘World Famous Punjabi Pub’ – at the corner of South Road and Park Avenue even had the desi gimmick of reputedly accepting rupees as well as sterling for a glassy (‘small glass’). Nobody believed the pub had opened in the 1990s; clearly it had been there since the Middle Ages BOAC. Southall’s retail opportunities and ethnic makeup are different now. Nowadays the Glassy Junction is a vegetarian restaurant, yet the music it once blasted out in the saloon bar still haunts Southall (and Somali Party Southall) because the town remains one of the spiritual shrines to that British-Asian invention, pop24 PULSE WINTER 2012

bhangra. That mutant commercial form of amplified Punjabi folk music no longer vies solely with Bollywood, Michael Jackson or Beyoncé in Southall. Later waves of incomers saw to that.

During the 2012 Olympics the success of the Mogadishu-born, Hounslow-raised athlete Mo Farah broadcast the existence of a West London-based Somali diaspora.

Over the last dozen or so years Southall’s Little Punjab has seen a Little Mogadishu spring up, centred on Somali-run businesses

by The Green. Sadly, Somali music has very little presence outside its own immediate diaspora or expat community. A Londonbased Horn of Africa analogy may provide historical context.

When the Ethiopian diva Aster Aweke made her sold-out debut at Ronnie Scott’s in Soho in 1989, like some hitherto invisible republic, thousands of hopefuls without a snowball-in-Addis Ababa’s chance of admittance turned up to party outside the venue and shut down Frith Street.

Somali Party Southall is an alert that Somali culture has successfully put down roots and is prospering. Horticulturally speaking, Abdulkarim Raas & Kuljit Bhamra’s double-hander is less a transplant than a graft. The project bears witness to a typically Southall solution: the melting-pot.

In the annals of pop-bhangra, Southall is not only linked with Alaap – one of whom had an office above the Glassy Junction – but also Mohinder Kaur Bhamra, one of the music’s pioneers. (To add other names would derail the tale.)

She sings on Somali Party Southall.

Her son, Kuljit Bhamra (a fixture in various capacities from, among others, work ‘with, in or on’ Hans

Raj Hans, Heera, Andy Sheppard, Bend it Like Beckham, Bombay Dreams and Zoe Rahman) came into the orbit of Abdulkarim Raas.

In 2006 Raas booked into Bhamra’s Southall recording studio. The upshot was that the Nairobi-born owner Punjabified a song called Dahab – the historic launch pad for

this collaboration.

Back home in Somalia, the release of Dahab made a conquest of another kind. A young woman called Nimco Degan came under the Southall spell. Kismet raised her cute little head. Not too long afterwards, she came to England, tracked Raas down and in time became his wife. Her fresh-voiced, melismatic singing on Ya Salam, Ya Salam (colloquially ‘Oh Wow’ times two) is one of Somali Party Southall’s highlights. At the project’s heart are Punjabi, Somali and Swahili elements, brilliantly reflecting the complexities of the town’s ethnic complexion. Jambo (‘Hallo’) and Malaika (‘Angel’) carry echoes of yet another diaspora, the Indian East African one, for example.

What sets Somali Party Southall apart from those far-toomany mishmash world fusion albums sent to plague us is that, musically, it has grown together organically. Aside from the album’s indisputable musical slash cultural worth, it is also important sociologically. It’s not often that a music critic chap can say that in a record review.

Englobed August 2012 Giuliano Modarelli Manush Recordings Reviewed by Ken Hunt

A

round the time that I was delivering the final drop-ins for my India chapters in the Europe, Asia & Pacific volume for what would be the third and final edition of the Rough Guide to World Music, there was a bloom of new talent working in East-West fusion forms emerging.

Among the new names were Arun Ghosh, Nataraj, Zoe Rahman, Idris Rahman, Samay, Shastriya Syndicate and The Teak Project.

There was no telling, naturally, who would stay the course.

Three years on from the book’s publication in 2009, acoustic guitarist Giuliano Modarelli has emerged with a solo album amusingly titled Englobed. That said, its name also carries a vague echo of the Leeds, Yorkshire-based band that Modarelli co-founded, in that Samay’s 2008 album was called Songs for a Global Journey.

Italian-born, he is a graduate of the Leeds College of Music. The album’s dedication goes to his teachers, the sarodists Buddhadev Das Gupta (spelled ‘Bhuddhadev’

in the notes) and Das Gupta’s pupil Prattyush Banerjee.

Recorded at ATA Studios in Leeds by Neil Innes – alas not the Bonzo Dog and Rutles Neil Innes – in 2011, Englobed opens

with a faithful interpretation of rāg Bhimpalasi track encoded as a two-part performance. It starts with Alap which Modarelli plays solo (naturally) before Bhupinder Singh Chaggar joins in on tabla for track two entitled Jhaptaal.

Modarelli’s approach here is thoroughly classical in orientation.

The same applies to the still finer, pathos-engendering three-part interpretation of rāgam Charukesi called Charukeshi Jugalbandi on which the santoor player Kamajeet Ajimal acts as the foil of the jugalbandi (‘duet’) title.

Listening to Modarelli’s graceful, sensitive playing is to be reminded how far Western guitar has come in a Hindustani context – or an applied Hindustani context, given rāgam Charukeshi or Charukesi being a borrowing from the Southern art music tradition.

In February 1967, when John Pilgrim made a private recording of the influential British guitar player Davey Graham performing She Moved Through The Bizarre/ Blue Raga (eventually released as After Hours at Hull University, 4th February 1967 in 1997), Graham’s attack was deeply impressionistic, with no pretence of keeping ‘in rāg’. The common ground linking Davey Graham and Giuliano Modarelli is that both are deliverers of deeply personal interpretations.

Graham also experimented with oud and sarod, so another, admittedly slightly tenuous link to Graham is Modarelli’s deployment of Sura Susso’s kora on Cora (a fair amount of brainstorming went into that title, no doubt) and his oud sonorities on guitar on Arab Spring. Both are slighter, more, well, impressionistic pieces. The Davey Graham I knew would have approved and applauded this album. Englobed is a promising advance in a new skin on old bones sort of way.

SADAA is an alliance of the country’s leading South Asian Dance development agencies. They have come together to work strategically to further the development and profile of South Asian Dance in all its forms.

We are now:

/ Pulse

kadam

connecting asian dance and music communities

London

London

Liverpool

Leicester

Luton

MILAPFEST

UNITING HEARTS THROUGH ARTS

Birmingham

Liverpool

Pulse south asian music and dance

We’re delighted to be going into our eleventh year In order to simplify our administration, of publication we will be renewing subscriptions at the and 2013 is start of the year. Thanks to those who have already looking already sent their renewals, reminders will be sent out in mid-January. prosperous.

Pulse south asian music and dance

Winter 2012 - Issue 119

£7.50 | $15 | €9.50

INSIDE In the Frame Misrana Reviews Darbar 2012, RSC - Much Ado About Nothing, Gait to the Spirit, Hetain Patel, India Dans Festival plus CD reviews: Englobed, Somali Party Southall

Shobana Jeyasingh Celebrates 25 years of Making Dance

One Man and his Chitravina Profile on Vidhya Subramanian

Celebrating

sound in print

kadam

connecting asian dance and music communities

pulseconnects.com

Pulse asian music and dance

INSIDE

The Man Who Loves to Listen

The Brains Behind Darbar 2012 The Cultural Olympiad in the Eyes of the Critics

Celebrating

kadam

We have also been reviewing our prices and have developed a three strand system which, we feel, accommodates the needs of our readers. Please note that this is the first price increase in four years. We would like Annual Print Subscription —£32 Annual E-Subscription (pdf) —£15 Annual Student Print Subscription (for those in full time education) —£12

thank all our readers and wish all a creative and fulfilling new year.

connecting asian dance and music communities

Pulse asian music and dance

INSIDE

Dancing Their Way to London 2012

Profile on Anusha Subramanyam Reflections from Alchemy Festival 2012 Behind the Lines: The Art of Critical Writing

kadam

For subscriptions visit us on pulseconnects.com Find us on facebook.com/pulseconnects and twitter @SanjeeviniPulse

Bradford

www.pulseconnects.com

Kadam/Pulse call-out for dance artists for their Unlocking Creativity Shorts platform to be held at the Hat Factory, Luton in May 2013.

The showcase is for new work created in or influenced by any South Asian dance genre. We are looking for fresh, thoughtful work that will leave audiences amazed, moved, provoked. The evening will feature up to four dance acts of between 10-20 minutes. Entries from dance and music collaborators looked upon favourably.

Please apply to info@pulseconnects.com with a 35 word description, title, length of piece and a dvd or YouTube link.

Closing date for applications: 15th January 2012

UC SHORT S

South Asian dance platform new work

Artists who featured in 2012— Veena Basavarajaiah Scheherazaad Cooper and Sitara Karimzada Devika Rao Anusha Subramanyam designed by kikuchi

www.kikuchi-online.com