Manasi Madiwale
In late 2024, at InSyncKathak Dance School’s annual holiday party, our esteemed Guru, Anupama Srivastava, informed us all to block our calendars for Mother’s Day 2025. The InSyncKathak dancers, along with Guru Anupama Srivastava, were going to be performing at the highly prestigious San Franscisco International Arts Festival (SFIAF).
Kathak is an ancient Indian classical dance form renowned for its intricate footwork, spins (chakkars) but above all, its vivid story-telling. I went to the SFIAF performance, with starry eyes and hopes of an enchanted Mother’s Day afternoon. Little did I know that I was in for a real treat.
The SFIAF performance was choreographed by Anupama Ji, who is a distinguished disciple of Padmashri Guru Shovana Narayan. It was aptly titled Prakriti, and delved into the intricate relationship between the human world and Mother Nature. It was an ode to Guru Shovana Narayan Ji’s 75th birth year, and featured some of her classic choreographies, albeit with a modern-day California outlook.
The performance started with an ode to Mother Nature, titled Dhwani-Pratidhwani (Sound-Echo). True to its name, the dancers’ footwork echoed through the auditorium, precise and timed accurately, following the rhythm of the percussion down to the microsecond. The footwork was the real star of this dance, a pure Nritta piece.
This was followed by OM- the cosmic dance of creation, honoring the vibrations of Om and the creation and sustenance of the cosmos. The young students, all dressed in white angarakhas, started the dance with their back to the audience, slowly unfolding and revealing their faces to the audience. Their well-coordinated fast chakkars (spins) may have thrown the audience in a tizzy, but the young skilled dancers maintained their gaze razor-sharp, their feet light and well-balanced.
The third piece of the afternoon was Panchtatva– honoring the five elements of Sky, Air, Water, Fire and Earth. The dancers were very appropriately dressed in colors representing their respective elements. All five elements were seen to be initially contributing positively towards Mother Nature, coming together in harmony to create life. However, when calamity strikes in the form of floods, hurricanes, tsunamis, wildfires and earthquakes, Mother Nature’s creations were shown to be disturbed and destroyed. The panic and fear of these natural calamities was expertly demonstrated by the dancers through their emotions and movements.
The fourth performance of the afternoon was Dishaantar – Embracing the Change towards Sustainability, a novel piece conceived and produced by Guru Shovana Narayan in India the early 80’s and restaged after almost four decades in the US, that showcased the ills of climate change and deforestation in the modern environment. Anupama Ji and the InSyncKathak dancers skillfully showed a village transforming into a concrete jungle with unfortunate consequences for its residents such as, health scares and even death. The poignant emotions of the dancers could be felt reverberating through the audience. It was an excellent demonstration of Abhinaya, the art of skilled emoting and expressions.
The grand finale was a true show-stopper- a Tarana set in Raag Yaman. The dancers resembled blooming flowers, spinning around in their colorful costumes, perfectly in sync with each other. Anupama Ji’s students are reputed to be extremely well-coordinated with each other, and her choreography highlighted this, replete with complex patterns and dancers seamlessly moving from one corner of the stage to another. The dance reached its crescendo in the Lari, a fast-paced culmination of the dancer’s feet chiming together in unison.
With a splendid combination of strong technique, intricate story-telling, jaw-dropping lighting effects, and dynamic stage movements, the InSyncKathak performance truly stood out for showcasing innovative ideas of harmony with Nature, sustainability, and spirituality and carrying forward the legacy of the legendary Kathak Guru Padmashri Shovana Narayan ji. It acknowledged several natural calamities, including the recent wildfires in California, a lived reality for many amongst us. And it left the audience enthralled, the auditorium echoing with loud applause at the end in praise of the majestic art they had just witnessed.
(Author Manasi Madiwale MD, is a Pediatrician and Kathak student)
Photo Credits: Kyle Adler
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