Monday, November 10, 2014

A night of good food, good company, and great art

Day one of the Kalabharathi National Music and Dance Festival 2014 is over, I am happy to report it was a great success. There was a considerable turnout of support and the performances were amazing. It was filled with some great art and great company.

I had the amazing opportunity to meet my teacher's guru, Sree Pandit Kalamandalam Kshemavathy .  She is a world known Mohiniyattam dancer and a household name in Kerala. My guru, Aparna Marar, is well connected. She not only is a student of this great teacher, but also a student of Sree Pandit Padma Subrahmanyan. Aditionally, my guru in Minnesota is also directly trained by Padma Subrahmanyam.
Now I understand mentioning this may sound a bit braggy, however,  I am continually blown away, and humbled by the amazing opportunities I am having here. The connection to such great legends for someone like me, a novice - a nobody dancer from Minnesota, is astounding. To many readers these people are not known, but to people in the world of Indian classical dance they are very well known.  These are the scholars and creators that elevate the art form and have received national honors. These women are household names in India, and they are very well respected, as they should be. I guess what I am saying is these people are huge and important, and most Bharatanatyam dancers don't get to sit next to them and eat curry, like I got to. I am humbled, grateful, and blown away by the amount of introduction and fortune I have been blessed with on this dance journey, truly.



The dance line up last night was outstanding. There were two performances: Pavrithra Bhat, a young male Bharatanatyam dancer from Pune, and Dr. Prathiba Sharma, a scholar and acclaimed Satriya dancer.

Satriya is one of the 8 classical dances of India. It originates in Assam, India and is noticeably a North Eastern dance style. It is a dance that was not recognized as a classical dance until the year 2000. I don't know very much about this dance form, but can tell you it has an elegance and grace like Kathak, but also employs elements that look similar to Odissi. It is, however, very uniquely it's own form and since I don't know much about it will leave my assessment there.


The Bharatanayam performance by Pavrithra Bhat was exhilarating. I had never seen a solo male performance live. This young man was very athletic and quick-footed. His postures were picture perfect, and his comand of abhinaya (conveyance of emotion) was moving. I actually teared up during his third dance performance.



Watching this performance was great for my education, and, in fact, my guru assigned me a task. She wanted me to tell her what his three performances where about, or what Puranas or stories were being displayed. I am happy to report, thanks to my serious dedication and training this last few weeks, I not only did a great job in identifying the stories, but i could also following his usages of hasta mudra and posture. Additionally, I also was able to pull out the steps, from what adavus they were taken from, and identify his use of gathi, a system used to created steps to punctuate tala (beats). Actually i am quite proud of my accomplishment. This was a great test of my knowledge and I can really follow what is going on. Huge. I have come a very long way in the last two weeks...hard work, passion, and dedication does pay off!



After the performances we had a wonderful dinner at really cool little restaurant called Dhe Puttu. This trendy little restaurant is owned and created by a beloved Kerala film actor Dileep, Check it out.  This place was very cool. The entire menu was different styles of puttu. Puttu is something quintessentially Keralite and this restarant took the homestyle puttu and made it into a kitchy, fun, fusion theme.

 Puttu is a very rustic Kerala dish that is hard to describe if you have never eaten it. It a steamed combination of coconut and rice flower. It is steamed in a hollow bamboo chute known as a Puttu Kutti.  It is a starchy component that you would eat with a wet curry. My favortie combo is kadala and puttu, a kerala classic breakfast dish. Kadala is a spicy curry made from small dark chickpeas.

In all a great night. Good food, good company, and great art. Looking forward to tonight's performance.


Namaste,
Christy
















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