Dedicated to Asian dance and music. Keeping the arts communities informed, connected and energised. Highlighting hot spots of creativity and cutting-edge practise, making these ancient art forms ever relevant and refreshed.
Although Eminem’s misanthropic anti-everything alter-ego Slim Shady was put to rest a couple of years ago, the problem posed by the above quotation lives on the most unlikely place: the community (if such a fractious, schismatic group of people can even be called that) of kathak dancers.
I am very fortunate to have had as my neighbour and friend, a creative artist and philosopher, choreographer, dancer, writer, a bundle of energy and a gentle human being, the late Chandralekha. It is extremely rewarding to be in the presence of such people whose energies one cant help but absorb.
This past year of my Kathak training has brought to me the realisation that it's often the ostensibly simple things that prove the hardest to accomplish, but which are all at once the most effective.
As the Darbar and Alchemy Festivals become memories (with points of intense pleasure) at Dartington Hall in South-West England, the Tagore Festival mounted by Satish Kumar of Resurgence magazine is in full swing. For those who live in the surrounding areas this is a gift: the eminence of the speakers and artists from the likes of poet Andrew Motion, life-style guru Deepak Chopra, writer Amit Chaudhuri and dancer Aditi Mangaldas gather to celebrate the influence that the poet and philosopher Rabindranath Tagore continues to exert over us today.
Hindustani Music was not for the masses and only for the elite and the wealthy. ‘baithaks’ were organised and the musicians became court musicians of the rajahs and nawabs, and zamindars where they were well looked after and generously rewarded. It is because of them that the music survived.
As they say either there is no bus or three come in at the same time. This year the Alchemy Festivalof South Asian culture (music, dance, theatre, fashion, literature and debate) at the Southbank Centre, London and Darbar Festival of classical music Hindustani and Carnatic, at the Kings Place, London will overlap over the Easter weekend, forcing audiences to make choices.
Bade Ghulam Ali Khan Sahib was sitting on Chowpatty beach in Bombay, watching the setting sun. The rays had fanned out and the sky was red, as was the sea reflecting back.
Lost in thought at this breath-taking spectacle, Khan Sahib mused that the twilight hour was the perfect time to sing Marwa.
