For dance-lovers, the release of Attendance, the dance-annual is a big event. Considering it is India's only yearbook on classical-dance, and that it is published and edited by Ashish Mohan Khokar, the excitement is understandable. After all, Ashish's father, the late Mohan Khokar was a well-known dance historian, documenter, scholar and critic.
He was an archivist as well –– his collection included now-priceless rare pictures, artefacts, books, costumes, paintings, gramophone records, letters, etc. called the Mohan Khokar Dance Collection. It is the single-largest dance compilation on the history and heritage of Indian dance-forms. Moreover, Mohan's wife M.K. Saroja, was an accomplished Bharatanatyam dancer. And with Ashish being an avid photographer and documenter too, it has helped build a rich family resource on Indian dance.
Attendance 2009/10, the latest annual focuses on the lifetime work of Mohan Khokar and the Madras December season. Another theme is male classical-dancers, since Ashish believes they deserve more patronage than they currently receive. Attendance's release at Bangalore was a function presided over by Mohan and attended by the city's art-lovers, including dancers, teachers, and students. Art-patrons Chiranjeev Singh and Vimala Rangachar, dance-guru Maya Rao and Saroja, were among the main guests.
The release was followed by individual performances by six of the seven dancers profiled in the book –– male soloists of Karnataka, under age 50, with at least 10 years of professional, performing-dance experience (the selection criteria). These were the very talented K. Sathyaranayana Raju, Seshadri Iyengar, Murli Mohan, P. Praveen Kumar, Tushar Bhatt, B.P. Sweekruth and Shridhar Jain. The finale was a lively group item in which all seven participated.
Producing a good-quality, book-format dance-annual is a big challenge. Ashish has risen to it competently. Rare and evocative pictures, interesting and educative essays, a broad-spectrum coverage which touches on all of India's classical dance forms –– though Bharatanatyam-centric –– a time-range which stretches from yesteryears' legends to contemporary achievers, and good production values, all make Attendance 2010 value for money and worth preserving.
There are a few inconsistencies in spellings of some dancers' names and a few pages have text which is difficult to read given that the words run across richly detailed pictures and the colours of the letters don't contrast with the background hues. Barring these minor drawbacks, the book is a worthy effort. Dance books and periodicals are rare to come by in India. Also, they receive little patronage from publishers, corporates, and often, the dance community itself. It's difficult to say which causes the other or how much one trend reinforces the other. The fact that Ashish has received no governmental or corporate support for his dance-annual –– 12 years since its inception –– is telling.
“Between two Khokars, ie two individuals, a century of dance-history has been preserved for the nation. But, does the country care enough for its dance history and heritage? It must be organised on a larger scale and made available to future generations, or it will be lost for ever,” Ashish says with concern.
So, given this situation, when a dance-journal is published –– and an authentic one like Attendance, it is a welcome step. This is a show that deserves to go on. And get bigger too with wider patronage, hopefully, from the public and corporates.
