With her institute Kadamb in its 53rd year, it would be understandable if veteran Kathak guru Kumudini Lakhia were to enjoy the shade of the great tree she planted in 1964 (the institution was registered in 1967, she clarifies, so officially it has only reached 50) and watch it flower. “All the teachers are my students,” she says. “And Parul Thakur who looks after the administration of Kadamb is also my student. She used to dance (in her younger years).”
So yes, she can claim the entire staff as having been trained by her — “except the chowkidar, and the driver”— she laughs, with characteristic precision.
The statement is significant in the context of India’s numerous institutions founded by great personalities, where the concept of a second rung of leadership, or rather its lack, has caused a major hurdle in the continuity of the work envisioned by the founders, if not its actual disappearance. When the veteran choreographer is travelling, for a teaching assignment abroad, a lecture or some other work, the world at large needs to know that the Ahmedabad-based company and teaching institute can run on its own.
“They do manage things. When there are small programmes they can accept them. They are able to present performances for which the choreography is ready. But choreography is a very difficult thing to do. We are trying, but we’ve not done too much. I’m trying to train them in choreography.”
Interestingly, this most jovial, approachable of gurus notes that her disciples “for some reason don’t seem to have the confidence (Himmat nahin karte, pata nahin kyun).”
She does name Sanjukta Sinha, the firebrand young dancer who is fast making a name for herself as a soloist, as one who does exhibit the courage to try choreography while still with the Kadamb repertory, but the others need coaxing. However, explains the guru, it is not easy to come up with significant choreographic work, “to do something new, to do it differently.”
‘Different’ is a noteworthy word in the Kumudini lexicon. Whatever experimental work she may have presented over the decades, she emphasises she has only ever used the vocabulary of Kathak, not having felt the need to step out of her movement language.
‘Different’ carries importance also because the classical dance field is burdened by a certain sameness of presentation across young performers. Regardless of their chosen form, many of the artists taking the stage today are considered good copies of their gurus but nothing more.
For this veteran honoured with the Government of India’s Padma Bhushan and the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award though, creating assembly line versions of herself was never a temptation. “My institution doesn’t produce clones,” she states, and dance observers will vouch for her veracity. “Parul (Shah) in New York is different, Atsuko (Maeda) in Japan is different. Sanjukta (Sinha) is totally different to the girl who is performing for the Raza Foundation (Rupanshi Kashyap, who performed in New Delhi this week),” she says, naming a few of her more recent alumni. “They are human beings. In their body there is an atma (soul). It’s not a wall you can simply whitewash.”
Catchy refrain
The veteran dancer was in Delhi with her company that performed for the Purana Qila Festival of choreographic works in classical dance styles. Kadamb performed the production “Vivarta”, based on the idea of Kathak itself. It was based on a lakshan geet (a composition that explains the salient features of an art or a concept in a poetic, musical manner) by the legendary Bindadin Maharaj. The catchy refrain of the song is “Nir tat dhang”. With music composition by Madhup Mudgal and lighting design by Gyan Dev Singh, the production evoked a rapturous response from the Purana Qila audience that contained a fair sprinkling of non-connoisseurs. Elements of spectacle and subtlety, melody and thunderous rhythmic virtuosity, elegant form and lightning chakkars ensured that while the uninitiated had enough to keep them interested, the regular dance watchers too had plenty to applaud.
A scene from “Vivarta”
The dance elements like footwork, tala, leaps and chakkars, the myths and legends and symbology of dance depicted through Shiva and the other gods, Krishna, Radha and the whole of nature were visualised in a series of scenes.
“You would have seen, it was all about Kathak,” says the choreographer. She points out that this lakshan geet is usually taught in a cursory manner to Kathak students, but she has expanded on the theme. “Every item was different, but it was all about Kathak.”
While the norm has been to present it as an ‘action song’, with word-to-word translation into mudras, she has used the lyrical base and the variety of music provided by the composer to create an entire 75-minute group production.
“Nir tat dhang” is a composition all Kathak students should know well, she avers, regretting that these days students don’t even know the technical terminology of the form.
As for expanding on the theme, she feels strongly that Kathak and its practitioners should interact with the world around them. “I feel Kathak should imbibe all the forms of art, it should involve itself with other art forms.” Once, for example, she used electronic music, a move that had the eyebrows of the ‘traditionalists’ up in the air.
Her costumes are characterised by soft colours and earth shades, whereas the trend is often to use extremely bright colours just to look bright on stage. She also often dispenses with the flowy dupatta, a move that has elicited some debate in the Kathak community on what is ‘acceptable’ and what is not. Her aim is to work out costumes that do not obstruct the bodily form so that the lines of the art can be seen.
But, right from the general public, who back in the 1960s thought she was bringing the dance of the “Lucknow tawaifs” to Ahmedabad, to the highly revered gurus in the field who felt she was tampering with the art tradition itself, Kumudini Lakhia has taken a barrage of criticism on the chin and come out smiling, firm in her own intentions. Her penchant for experiment and a willingness to allow osmosis as the art evolves from ancient to contemporary times has led her on an adventurous path.
“In the beginning when I was doing it people did not accept it, the gurus did not accept it. Because people do not like those with a creative mind. They feel, ‘When our gurus have created work, who are you to create something new? What right do you have?’ This is the approach. So it has been quite difficult.”
Cheerful approach
But the statement is not made in rancour. The cheerful veteran, who points out that she is the “senior-most person in the entire Kathak world”, as even the celebrated Birju Maharaj is seven years her junior, is aware that she has not only trodden her own path but also opened the field for others. As a small example, she mentions that when she began staging group productions, presenting a large number of dancers performing chakkars across the stage, she was accused of trying to pull off ‘ballets’ in the name of Kathak. Today though, the spectacular sight of several dancers taking chakkars around the stage is such a common feature of the art that a general audience might not even recognise Kathak without it.
Some things though, never seem to change. At the Purana Qila show, all the women dancers were from Ahmedabad, but the boys were mostly from Delhi. The reason? “In Gujarat they want all the boys to become engineers,” she quips. “At this age — I’ve spent 70 years in dance — I have to beg, borrow, steal male dancers!”
Well, as long as she still steals the show….
‘She encouraged us to question’
Aditi Mangaldas on the influence of Guru Kumudini Lakhia
Yes, she doesn’t produce clones, because she encourages us as individuals. So while we were studying in Kadamb, the emphasis of course was on the rigorous learning of the Kathak repertoire and everything that goes with classical dance, however she encouraged us not to wear blinkers, to observe, to learn. And she was constantly questioning. This encouraged us to question. If there was some tenet given in the classical tradition of Kathak, one would ask, “Why is it? What was the reason, why was it included? Is it relevant today? If it is, how can I evolve it, if not, what can I replace it with, or how may I change it? Or may I absorb it into something that is relevant today?” All this helped her students to grow.
Chennai, 20/12/2014; Aditi Mangaldas during her performance in Karthik Fine Arts at Bharati Vidya Bhavan on Saturday. Photo: S. Madhuvanthi
Each of us comes not only with a different body size but with a different mindset, a different emotional canvas and also with a huge, different life experience. And if you disassociate dance from life, where is the art in it? You’re just a mere copycat. And to encourage that this doesn’t happen, that you yourself discover the artistry within you, I’m very, very grateful for Kumiben to have done this.
We were part of her many choreographies. Starting from “Sargam” when I was only seven or eight, then “Ek Tha Gaon” and then “Venu Naad” which I think is an iconic production where she used a minature painting as a backdrop. We were in front and frozen, and the sound of Krishna’s flute breathed life into us.
We didn’t learn choreography as you may learn it in a classroom; unfortunately I don’t know that, but I hope that I have learnt something by just seeing her work, create work on us when we were young. I think “Venu Naad” was made when I was 11. But it was later, when “Dhabkar” happened when I was 16, and “Atah Kim”, that one saw the processes she used, saw how she and Atul (Desai) Bhai worked on the music. And I think that must have left a lot of impact. It was not only the choreography and the music but it was the aesthetics of the piece, and the costuming. So I think as young girl it was all these things, hopefully, that I absorbed. And many of these images and thought processes have helped me in the future.
