Kathak that whirls

Ruffled traditionalists didn't scare Manjari Chaturvedi off from breaking away from traditional Awadhi Kathak to dance to the strains of Sufi music. Eleven years later Chaturvedi's Sufi Kathak has been validated as a structured dance form that's rooted in classical traditions.

"If I am dancing to music compositions that haven't changed from 700 years ago, how can it ever be contemporary?" asks Chaturvedi. The dancer, originally trained in the Awadhi ethos of classical Kathak by Guru Pandit Arjun Mishra, early in her career gravitated towards Sufi traditions.

Borrowing a little from the moving meditation of the whirling dervishes, Chaturvedi's style combines the mysticism of Sufism with her dance.

"It was unheard of to perform Kathak to anything other than Hindustani classical and here I was dancing to Sufi ghazals and qawwal," says Chaturvedi whose style has found audiences at settings like the Taj Mahal and Sydney Opera House.

Chaturvedi believes detractors thought her interest in Sufism was transitory. Instead, she developed her craft in detail, taking long scholarly travels to Central Asia, learning new movements that were part of indigenous spiritual traditions.

"It's the result of very hard work; definitely not based on a whim," says Chaturvedi. She closely studied Baba Bulleh Shah's contribution to Punjabi Sufi traditions. "If someone told me Bulleh Shah danced while singing, I made sure I learnt a step or two and incorporated it," she says.

Chaturvedi doesn't feel the need to justify not preserving some tenets of the classic Kathak repertoire and points out the changes she has incorporated in costume.

"Kathak was initiated and nurtured in the temples as a story telling form so the costume was akin to what we imagined Krishna's Radha to wear. Later Islamic influence transformed Kathak with elaborate costumes into a medium for entertainment."

Neither seemed appropriate so Chaturvedi took the frock from the dervish tradition and the Peshwa pajamas from the Aawdhi tradition, breaking free from the Kathak danseuse mould popularised by Hindi cinema.

Chaturvedi recently performed in Mumbai for the first time, courtesy Kalpana Shah's new cultural promotion outfit, Tao Foundation. Shah sees herself as a patron of the arts. Her art gallery, Tao, is a significant part of the local primary art market and last year she instituted an annual award for a JJ School of Fine Arts student with exceptional promise, hoping to host similar awards at MS Baroda, Santiniketan and IIFA (International Institute of Fine Arts).

Shah does not want her association with performing artistes to start and end with an annual concert, so she intends to host Chaturvedi in other countries as well. "I was blown away when I saw her perform at the Taj Mahal. It was a soulful, magical performance," Chaturvedi is surprised to see Sufism, often seen as esoteric because of its mystical aura, catch on among the young.

"There used to be a time when I could predict my audiences because there was always a small parallel audience for Sufi performances. Now college students tell me they 'get it'."

To her critics, she says, "There are two official dance forms associated with Sufism, the whirling dervishes and Sufi Kathak, the rest are all spontaneous folk traditions." Sufi Kathak, she says, has sufficient structure in it for her to teach. If only she had time off from performing.