The Purusha has thousand heads, thousand eyes and thousand feet. He is the omnipresent Universal Being. He envelops the world from all sides pervading in each part of the creation and extends beyond in the ten directions. This is how once the grandeur of Purush in the classical dance world was described. But as observed by Dr. Karan Singh, an authority on Indian culture, during the opening ceremony of the Purush Festival held last week, “Dance is a field which is facing discrimination in reverse! Men are being marginalised and ignored but one has to fathom that dance pervades beyond discrimination of gender, sex and everything which lies in between. Purush in dance is all pervading, cutting across everything!”
The festival, curated on similar lines by Ashish Khokar, saw four different male dancers performing in different dance styles, a couple of films on male dancing, the launch of the book “Attendance” featuring Prince Yog Sundar on the cover page and talks by eminent art experts on male dancing. In short, an attempt was made to create the ambience for the evening of Purushmaya.
According to Khokar, “In past five years we have awarded 30 dancers who have never received an award. These awards were not the usual cash and shawl but connecting them to professional theatre and dance groups abroad, where they learn stage crafts and new techniques, helping them in their careers which a shawl or token money couldn’t possibly do.”
Pointing out the present trend of organisers to present dance shows by either groups or husband-wife team, Khokar feels that solo male dancing needs to be promoted with utmost fervour else this form would be completely marginalised.
Film screening
A film presented by noted scholar Arshiya Sethi during the festival had archival clips featuring stalwarts of the dance world including Ted Shawn, Ram Gopal, Uday Shankar, Birju Maharaj and Kelucharan Mohapatra among others, highlighting the importance of solo male performances over the years.
The festival commenced with an Odissi performance by Gokulshree Dass, the 35-year-old dancer from Odisha in Guru Deb Prasad Das’ style, dancing on Ashta Shambhu.
This was followed by Anuj Mishra’s Kathak in which he presented Shiv Vandana “Karpur Gauram Karunavtaaram...” ending with Nrityagati, a piece divided in pirouettes of 16-16.
The last two performances saw Sujay Shanbhag presenting a Shiva stuti piece, in Mysore royal court style of Bharatanatyam and K.Suresh Kaliyath performing Ottan Thullal.
His hilarious description of how Hanuman breaks the ahankar of Bhima made a telling statement on human vanity.
