Siva-Parvati can be hailed as the First Couple of Indian dance, since many concepts such as lasya-tandava; purush-prakriti and ardhanariswara emerge from their lore.
In modern times, it was the example of American pioneers Ted Shawn and Ruth St. Denis in 1920s that inspired Uday Shankar in the 1930s to team up with wife Amala. Before marriage, he had performed professionally with Anna Pavlova, Simkie and Zohra. His example led to the rise of many dancing couples in the 1940s and 1950s such as: Gopinath-Thankamani, Natraja-Shakuntala and the Vashis. This inspired the next generation of current seniors.
Today, our leading senior dancing couples are the Dhananjayans, the Reddys and, until recent bereavement, the Narasimhacharis.
For sometime C.V. Chandrasekhar and his wife Jaya danced together. Kathak couple Sunayna with husband Hazari Lal too did the same. Many such first generation names abound — Kelucharan Mohapatra, Yog Sunder and Kameshwar Segal.
Recalls octogenarian C.V. Chandrasekhar: “Our horoscopes, checked by our parents, brought us together. Dancing together was not a conscious decision, it just happened. Jaya, a Bharatanatyam dancer, was trained by my friend and colleague Lalitha Sastri of Kakakshetra in New Delhi.”
For the Chandrasekhars, the biggest challenge was to find a Carnatic musician in Varanasi where CVC was working in a college and later at the BHU. “We found it difficult to dance together much, unless we had a singer from Delhi. We did dance whenever we received a decent remuneration to pay the accompanists. One of the advantages of both of us being dancers is that we could perform solos or duets depending on the opportunity.”
Among the young Bharatanatyam dancing couples who have made a serious mark today are Anuradha-Shridhar, Kiran-Sandhya, Parshwanath-Shruti, Renjith-Vijna, Sheejith Nambiar-Parvathy Menon and Shrikant-Ashwathi. .
Lingaraj Pradhan-Sanjukta Pradhan in Odissi, Sinam-Monika in Manipuri and in Kathak there are Nirupama-Rajendra, Hari-Chetna, Tushar-Pooja-Bhatt and Anuj Mishra-Neha and Kuchipudi has Kishore Mosalikanti and Padmavani.
What makes them dance together? “Karmic connection. Dance brought us together,” recall the Dhananjayans. “We struggled a lot initially. We have seen days of penury and hardship but dance kept us together.”
For art’s sake
Younger generation is smarter professionally and some of them have chosen a life partner from the same field for their art to flourish. Sandhya and Kiran met and married for love, dance came as an incentive. “Dance has strengthened our relationship.”
Lingaraj Pradhan of Bhubaneswar was an established solo dancer until he married Sanjukta. “It was a conscious decision to marry a dancer for professional growth.” Now they find more performance avenues. Parshwanath met Shruti while working on the post-production of guru Padmini Ramchandran’s creation. “The initial issue when we began to work together as artistes was making two divergent styles of one form meet, but we found a way out and have been making it work.”
Nirupama and Rajendra are popular today for their lavishly-mounted shows. When they dance together, like at Nrityodhaya’s 75th anniversary celebration in Chennai recently, they weave beautiful images. “We bring to our dance, our individual energy and skill,” says Nirupama
The writer, a critic and historian, is the author of several books and edits attenDance, a year book
