Dazzling the gods on high

Lekha J Shankar

Special to The Nation

 The Bangkok International Festival of Music and Dance follows up on the success of last year's thrilling Indian dance production "Sanskriti" with "Punarnava" ("New Again") tonight at the Thailand Cultural Centre.

 The celebration in movement arrives courtesy of New Delhi's Kathak Kendra, the leading academy of kathak, the classical dance form of northern India that amalgamates Muslim and Hindu styles.

 Bells known as ghungroos are a key part of the dance presentation, the dancers wearing as many as 100 on each foot, but the main focus is on the swirling pirouettes called chakkars and the rapid takkars, the foot movements.

 "Punarnava" is the creation of veteran choreographer Kumudhini Lakhia, with music by Madhup Mudgal, whose sister Madhavi Mudgal danced in Bangkok last year.

Lakhia began her dance career touring the West with the celebrated Ram Gopal before founding her own dance school, Kadamb, in Ahmedabad.

 "Punarnava" was commissioned for the Kathak Kendra repertory troupe. Lakhia worked with its 13 best dancers to create a show that knocked out fans and critics at its Delhi premiere.

 The audience was "mesmerised", The Hindu newspaper reported, "as a new vision framed a time-honoured composition, imparting to it a burnished sheen that made it timeless in relevance".

 Lakhia told critic Sunil Kothari she'd based the dance-drama on the song "Niratata Dhang" - which deals with the love between Krishna and Radha and is fundamental to kathak - using it to "explore kathak and its technique, both in nritta [movements] and its expressional aspects".

 Lakhia worked closely with Madhup Mudgal to ensure that the stanzas combined seamlessly, followed by a refrain, to maintain the rhythmic tradition. And she added fascinating touches - such as Radha spinning round and round to express the ecstasy of love.

 "I innovated with imagination while keeping the mood and temperament intact. I can build on tradition and use it for support, but I must have originality."

 In the riveting opening sequence, Krishna and Radha dance among the shepherds alongside the Jamuna River, watched by Shiva and Brahma, who are as dazzled as the human audience by the diverse rhythms.

 There are the soft movements of the dancers peeping from behind veils, and the energetic rhythms of the dandiya ras - the stick dance. The reverberating music and remarkable lighting, Kothari said, make ancient Brindavan seem like "any modern metropolitan town".

 The costumes are a delight. Lakhia chose outfits in bright red, green and blue as well as pure white to imbue the show with electricity.

 "The dancers look like the well-trained, flawless ballerinas of the Bolshoi Ballet and could put in shadow the corps de ballet of the Royal Academy of London," Kothari enthused.

 "The production left nothing to be desired. It had the best elements of each collaborator and was embellished by the repertory dancers, who shone like dazzling diamonds.

 "The sophistication, the flow, the execution, the music, the visuals, all pointed to one fact: how kathak has moved today in an exciting direction. Kathak has scaled great heights in the hands of choreographers like Kumudhini."

 Lakhia has said that, although she is 75 years old, her vision remains youthful, thanks to the young dancers she works with.

 "It gives me an opportunity to explore kathak afresh," she said.

 "Having spent my entire life mastering, teaching, dancing and choreographing works in kathak, I still see more potential in it."