A contemporary kathak journey between life and death

What do you call a three year labour of love which brings kathak and contemporary dance together in a unique fusion? This experiment put together by renowned Canadian kathak exponent Joanna de Souza (senior disciple of the late Kathak legend Pt Chitresh Das who has been dancing kathak since 1987) and contemporary dancer Misty Wensel is having its world premiere at National Council for Performing Arts, Mumbai on Friday.

Being presented to mark India's 67th Republic Day celebrations, by Chhandam Nritya Bharati and Canada Council for the Arts, the collaborative experiment called Bardo brings in the best of technique and form of both genres. Bardo is a Tibetan Buddhist concept exploring the state between death and rebirth.

"I met Misty 15 years ago when she took a few of my kathak  classes and we sort of struck a rapport and began sharing ideas. We've since collaborated and even taught together at a dance retreat in Goa -Dancemala - which we had last weekend," recounts Joanna, "We've been wanting to work together and were finally able to make it come true three years ago when Bardo began falling into place."

Though Kathak has seeped into Misty's contemporary work too, it wasn't exactly easy she admits. "I live nearly 2,000 km away from Joanna and we had to work things out in our joint sessions and then take the interaction online."  According to her once they found threads that co-relate and complement each other the process was smoother. "This collaboration has been a journey of discovery and re-discovery of sorts."

Though born and brought up in Canada, Joanna credits her ease with the grammar and context of kathak to her guru Pt Das. "He was an incredible guru, a powerhouse and a visionary all rolled into one. He would constantly tell me that kathak was a form for anyone who passionate and willing to study and surrender themselves." She remembers being swept up in the culture of the dance form soon after she began training at 21. "For ten years I trained for at least five times a week under him. And he was a very generous teacher who never held back and ensured that each of his disciples gets the best." Despite its purism and discipline she remembers not being intimidated because of him. "The infectious joy and energy of those classes ensured that the training developed a very natural path of its own."

Both dancers hope they have done justice to the collaboration. Wensel admits its all very new territory and feels experimental and fresh. "We are continuously evaluating what we do to see that it follows the trajectory of collaboration," she says admitting, "It is important to ensure one form does not subsume the other. Whether it is the undulating of the spine or the way the torso moves is very different in both styles and we had to get an essence of both. In many way this is unchartered territory. We are opening doors and allowing them to lead us on."

Joanna too points out how the hour long choreography allows both forms to intertwine bringing in both their aesthetes and form. "Contemporary is radically different from the way kathak uses the body and that is why it took us a while to find a common language to bring it all together. We have consciously created spaces in the choreography to ensure that both forms shine through." 

Getting the music right for an ensemble piece like Bardo wasn't easy but Indians always know how to take influences from across the world, give it a regional spin and make it their own, laughs Ian de Souza who has worked on the music with percussionist Santosh Naidu. "My grandfather was born in Goa, India and I was born in Africa but have been living in Canada for a long time. My approach to music has been eclectic with R&B, funk and jazz. But there has always been an Indian strain which runs  through it," he says and calls Bardo "the perfect project to allow me bring that to the table."
He says the rich texture of Indian music can make most genres seem "transparent." According to him the challenge was to not allow that to happen. "Otherwise it becomes predictable. And we were sure we wanted anything but predictability."

Percussionist Naidu who has been listening echoes Ian. "There was no way any one influence would subsume the other given how varying all our backgrounds are. We bring such diverse inputs to the work," he says. A tabla exponent for over three decades this percussionist born into a family of musicians adds, "Remember though I began learning tabla when I was only five, my musical influences have largely come from R&B, hip-hop and jazz. So with both the music and dance it was like a melding of several worlds together."

But isn't three years a long time to spend with a choreography? Joanna doesn't even need to pause to answer that one. "This cannot and will not make sense commercially or logistically. For us this has just been a labour of love, something that comes from all our hearts," she says only for Naidu to quickly jump in with, "We hope we are able to give Padmaavat a run for its money."   
  
After its Mumbai premiere the dance concert will travel to Delhi, Bangalore, Panjim and finally go to Kolkata where Pt Chitresh Das began Chhandam's dance journey.  Joanna is very excited about the last lap because she spent two year's in the West Bengal capital with Pt Das' parents. "We will then see where Bardo takes us next," she says. "We want to take across Canada since it has already generated considerable interest."

Kathak exponent and director of Chhandam India Seema Mehta is quite excited about the premiere but admits to being curious about the audience's reaction. "I'm used to being grounded in the pure traditional work but we have had a guru who thought out of the box as early as the 70s and 80s with productions like Gold rush with cowboy pants and hats. I have still to see an experiment like this one and you can see why I am so excited."

Well... So are we...