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Scroll.in
24-05-2025
- Entertainment
- Scroll.in
Listen: How tabla players accompany thumri and dadra portrayal in kathak performances
In the next instalment in our series on tabla accompaniment to Hindustani music and dance, we look at the role of the tabla player while accompanying repertoire in kathak performances that highlights the abhinaya or expressive aspect. Here, the poetic element of the thumri, dadra or the ghazal compositions have to be expressed through dance. This can be done either by the dancer performing the dual role of dancer and singer, but this depends on the training that he or she has undergone. Often, a vocalist who is part of the musical ensemble renders the thumri while the dancer renders it through abhinaya either in seated position or moving across the performance space. The tabla player accompanies this section in the same manner as would be done in the case of a vocal rendition of these forms, though some dramatic moments may be heightened by a change in volume or embellishment. Here are two recordings that showcase the dancer in seated position as he expresses the emotions contained in the song-text through facial expression and gesture. In both cases, listeners will note that the tabla player plays in the same manner as would be done in the case of a conventional vocal rendition of thumri and dadra without the dance element. However, in both illustrations, there is no laggi section, although this may be included during performance as per the dancer's choice. In the first case, the maestro Birju Maharaj sings a thumri set to the 16-matra Sitarkhani or Addha taal. Play The next recording features renowned dancer Shambhu Maharaj, who evokes myriad emotions as he used expression and gesture in this dadra composition set to the six-matra Dadra. Play
India Today
24-04-2025
- Entertainment
- India Today
How Kumudini Lakhia danced her way to the stars
Kumudini Lakhia (ne Jayakar) was born on May 17, 1930, when the world was literally at war. As a colony of the British, there was little concern for India's cultural symbols. Western dictionaries spell their dance forms like Flamenco and Salsa with the upper case but use the lower case for Indian forms such as Kathak and Bharatanatyam. If that's not cultural imperialism or racism in the arts, then what is? Kumudini was to change one of the fundamental tenets of Kathak, the only classical dance form that prevailed across north, central and western India. South India had many classical forms—Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Mohiniyattam and Kathakali—but the rest of India then had not accepted Odissi, Manipuri or Sattriya, which remained confined to the regional or even the was then the only pan-Indian form, almost. She grew up to be one of its best exponents, taking tutelage from such active sources as gurus Sohanlal, Shambhu, Birju Maharaj, Sundar Prasad, Radhe Lal and Ashiq Hussain Khan, the handsomest of all. She learnt from many—in fact, all—major gharanas (schools) then, and eventually made her own gharana: the Gujarat brought her to Ahmedabad, a booming industrial town by the little Karnavati river. It was a textiles town, where new institutions were coming up in design, management, milk-farming, even dance—Mrinalini Sarabhai founded Darpana in 1949 when she married Vikram Sarabhai, the scientist, and Kumudini followed her with Kadamb when she married Rajnibhai. The couple had first met in the Ram Gopal group, of which she was a star member. Ram went on world tours, finding and mentoring new talents each time, including Mrinalini, Saroja, Kumudini and, in later years, Leelavati (Swedish), Amla (French) and Tara (Pakistani). Ram was following the model of Uday Shankar, who found and groomed new partners like Simkie, Zohra and succeeded in groups and duets with Birju Maharaj, but never much as a soloist. Like Chandralekha, an average Bharatanatyam dancer, Kumudini, too, didn't go national as a soloist, but both gained attention and acclaim due to their group choreographic work—by breaking from the mould of what they had learnt and creating anew from the same form, albeit in group works. Earlier group works were mostly dance dramas about mythology or historical figures. The 1984 East-West Dance Encounter in Bombay, hosted by the Max Muller Bhawan under Georg Lechchner—its first director and Sonal Mansingh's second husband, the first being an Odia foreign service talent Lalit Mansingh—birthed for these two middle-aged or post-their-prime dancers a new lease of life. Then there was no looking back because—typical of India and we Indians—once the West gave a stamp of approval, then one was a success at home, too! This was also an outcome of the subservient colonial Kumudini helped put a sanitised Kathak, shorn of its excessive village-fair mannerisms, chatter and natter, on the world stage. She arrived internationally, too, as by the 1990s the economy was booming with the end of the protectionist trade policy of the past, and India was on the global stage thanks to the Festivals of India in many countries such as the UK, the USSR, the USA, France, Sweden, Germany, China and Japan. Kumudini went to many places as her PR, too, was excellent like her work—she could control her sharp tongue and temper when necessary. A pet of the establishment, she was on many government committees and won every award in the book till date, regardless of the party in power. One of her students penned a book on her 20 years ago, but it made no real impact as there was no historical perspective to contextualise her seminal work: the break from old Kathak by streamlining presentation and delivering clean, wholesome had a questioning mind and trained more such in Aditi Mangaldas and Daksha Sheth, who were like her two hands—the right and the left. Other star students followed but these two can be called next only to Kumiben in outreach, originality and creativity. Daksha is miles ahead because no two works of her are the same—a hallmark of genius. Aditi has stuck to Kathak and, saying her base is Kathak, even refused a Sahitya Natak Akademi award that was given for contemporary works. 'Kumiben gave us a language and the courage that has given us life,' she bloomed with many flowers—names that made a mark like Maulik-Ishira, Prashant, Sanjukta Sinha and now Rupanshi Thakkar. A true leader delegates and lets it be. Kumiben freed Kathak of court culture, the politics of gharanas and #MeToo moments. Girls were safe with her. She gave the old dance form a new look of pastels and purity of lines, making it shine. At 95, if she has gone dancing up there, she must be conducting more classes and telling all devtas and devis to shape to India Today Magazine
