The Lalit Arpan Festival held this month at India Habitat Centre in Delhi was a mélange of dance performances that presented some of the best cross-cultural artistes. Two acts that stood out were Mulla Afsar Khan’s abstract fusion form of Kathak and Kavita Thakur’s Swachh Bharat Kathak piece.
Best known for his inimitable creations, such as the Kathak tihai (or rhythmic footwork) on football, on clouds and water, Khan says, “I often look for rhythm in my surroundings, be it in daily activities like children playing football, or in natural surroundings like the clouds and water.” His football tihai is inspired by the beats and rhythm of a football moves across the field. Similarly, the movement of the clouds and thunder has a very distinctive character and rhythm which he depicts through his footwork.
In the past, Khan has merged Kathak with other dance forms such as Bharatnatyam, Odissi, Chaau and even tap dancing and Sega, a Mauritian local dance, to show that these vastly different forms can come together to form a harmonious and beautiful display. Khan was initiated into Kathak by his father, Guru Mulla Jafar Khan of the Benaras Gharana. His first performance was at the age of five at the Guru Purnima Mahotsav in Pune.
Thereafter, he joined the Kathak Kendra, New Delhi, under the tutelage of Guru Pt Rajendra Gangani, an exponent of the Jaipur Gharana. He also passed the Madhyama Poorna examination in Kathak from the Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Mahavidyalaya Mandal, Mumbai. Throughout his career, Khan has created several dance productions—the most popular being Pratibimb, which explores the journey of a guru-shishya relationship.
His home productions such as Atma Manthan are unlike other Kathak shows and depict the stories and struggles of daily lives. In Shitij, which was created during his time at the Indira Gandhi Centre for Indian Culture, Mauritius, the performances were set to the beats of jazz and local Mauritian music with Creole’s words interspersed with Hindi lyrics.
On the other hand, Kavita Thakur and her troupe’s Swachh Bharat performance was a befitting dance tribute to Mahatma Gandhi, on the eve of his 150th birth anniversary. Through the medium of classical dance set against inspirational songs about cleanliness, the troupe relayed the message of how the Swachh Bharat dream can be made a reality when a nation’s citizens rise above their differences of caste, creed, religion, language and culture. Indian classical dance fused with elements of folk, yoga and theatre, the dance medley also touches upon the five elements—earth, water, fire, air and space.
The show ended on a patriotic high, in which the troupe celebrated the country’s diversity. “Any thought expressed through dance and music creates a great impact on people and has an amplified effect,” she says about the concept.
Thakur, who specialises in Lucknow’s nazakat and nafasat style, began learning Kathak as a child from Ila Pandey in Shimla. In 1994, she joined the National Institute of Kathak Dance, New Delhi, and continued learning under the guru-shishya parampara from Guru Munna Shukla of the Lucknow gharana.
With a doctorate in dance, she has also trained aspiring dancers at the Shri Ram Bharatiya Kala Kendra in New Delhi. In 2008, Kavita founded her own organisation, called Kalashree, where she has been teaching Kathak for the past 12 years. She has choreographed a number of traditional Kathak ballets on mythological themes in the past, such as Krishna Katha, Mahishasur-Mardini as well those based on Rabindranath Tagore’s songs.
She has been composing ballets on contemporary themes, such as the ones on Swachh Bharat, water conservation and global warming. “One can break the monotony of dance for the masses by composing them in multi-dance styles,” she explains.