NEW DELHI: Every eye in the room settles indiscreetly on Odissi dancer Kevin Bachan’s bare chest, as he strikes a trikhandi pranam (three-fold salutation) posture. Bachan is used to people finding it difficult to adjust to the sight of a man dancing with abundant feminine grace. He, however, refuses to incarcerate his talent within a gendered stereotypes.
In its original form, Odissi, as part of Jatra (folk-theatre), had the nayika or the heroine played by a man.
And so, in his new show titled Nayika Ke Manobhav, Bachan will perform diverse emotive roles of nayika-based themes that male dancers usually shy away from. “Dance cannot be limited to gender. One performs from the soul, and the soul is not male or female. It is both,” says Bachan.
Under the tutelage of his guru, Padmashree Ranjana Gauhar, Bachan will attempt to play the nayika, who seeks the love and blessings of her Lord. “These compositions are set around the works of Jayadev, Sur Das, Swati Tirunal and Vidyapati, and using them, I illustrate the different emotional states that the heroine experiences,” says the dancer, who hails from Trinidad.
Back home, there was a dearth of classical dance schools. Danced was viewed as a hobby, but Bachan wanted to make it his profession, though his parents were unsure about his decision. The popular notion of dance being a woman’s prerogative made things worse. “My mother eventually supported me on seeing my determination, and insisted I move from Trinidad to a place where I would find a guru.”
Bachan first went to Bhubaneswar where, despite trying a lot, he didn’t get a breakthrough.
This followed punctilious online research for a guru. What popped up in front of him after typing in a few keywords was Gauhar’s profile. “I was so impressed by her body of experience – as a choreographer, dancer, and a painter – that I immediately contacted her. We met after a few days. When I looked at her my instinct told me I had found a mentor.”
Nayika Ke Manobhav
On: May 15, 7 pm
At: Stein
Auditorium, IHC