Four generations of the Chhandam lineage at Dancing Deer Farm

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abhinaya, Dancing Deer Farm, footwork, Gretchen Hayden, Pandit Chitresh Das, Retreat, slokas, Templeton

(Photos by Ritesh Das)

Eight Chhandika students, including two children and two teens, along with Gretchenji, attended a historic gathering of disciples, teachers, students and family members of Pandit Chitresh Das amid the vineyards and dry hills of Templeton, California at Dancing Deer Farm. Despite record heat of 110 degrees, spirits and emotions were high as members of the Chhandam family came in from various parts of California, the Northeast and Canada to spend a week living, breathing, dancing, sweating, thinking and discussing kathak.

Emily Mason, a student in California, gives us her account of the week here at the Chhandam blog.

The days began on the dance floor by 6:30 am, with two to three hours of intense footwork before breakfast, and went on from there. Everyone was pushed beyond what he or she thought was within reach, and everyone emerged exhausted but exhilarated. There were wonderful anecdotes by Pandit Das and his brother, tabla player and teacher Ritesh Das (who, together with Joanna de Souza, run tabla and kathak classes in Toronto), describing their experience growing up in a Calcutta home which was a center of musical and artistic excellence, where the likes of Ustad Vilayat Khan and Ustad Allah Rakha were regular visitors. There were viewings of videos from the early (1980s) days of the Chhandam Chitresh Das Dance Company and the current, dazzling Youth Company, along with rare footage of both Pandit Das and tabla maestro Zakir Hussain, both in their early twenties and sporting long and wild hair, exchanging rapid-fire bols (compositions) of mind-boggling speed and intensity.

There were footwork sessions, and practice in abhinaya and story telling, and a Holi tarana. There were slokas and mantras and other songs, sung during the footwork, during the story telling, and at the beginning and end of each session. And there were laughs and communal meals and friendships formed, and a meteor shower on the next to last night, clearly visible against the dark immensity of the desert sky.

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Pandit Chitresh Das and Jason Samuels Smith on tour in India

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Fastest Feet in Rhythm, Jason Samuels Smith, kathak, Labonee Mohanta, Pandit Chitresh Das, tap

Pandit Chitresh Das and Jason Samuels Smith, the “Fastest Feet in Rhythm,” are wrapping up a 5 city India tour, ending with a solo performance by Pandit Das at 8:30 pm tonight at the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts in Ahmedabad. Pandit Das and Jason Samuels Smith were in Chennai on 1/22, Mumbai on 1/26, Bangalore on 1/29 and Goa on 1/31, performing to packed and enthusiastic audiences.

Pandit Das, master kathak dancer, and Jason Samuels Smith, Emmy award winning jazz tap dancer, began a collaboration over eight years ago which has yielded an almost magical partnership with some phenomenal dance outcomes. (And mark your calendars for their upcoming performance in Boston on April 20-22!)

Pt. Das and Jason Samuels Smith in Chennai, India, Jan 2012, photo by Moogambirai R.

This photo and others from the Chennai performance available to view here.

Click here for an interview with Jason in Deccan Chronicle, and here for a review of the Mumbai performance.

And below is a note from Labonee Mohanta, a dancer and performer with the Chitresh Das Dance Company, that captures the exhilaration and energy of the tour:

Namashkar all,

After Guruji’s Mumbai solo, we headed out to Chennai on an early flight.  We land, get to where we’re staying, and makeshift a rehearsal room for Fastest Feet.  We find a piece of broken / crooked wood that Jason somehow can rehearse on.  Jason and Guruji start pounding away- the energy is brought to Chennai immediately.  We then proceed to a press meet where newsreporters are awaiting, cameras are flashing, and Jason, Guruji, Seema, Seema’s cousin Suraj and other Kirtilal members are lined up behind the podium in their jewelry store in front of jewelry that we cannot fathom the price of.  There they speak about bringing the classical art of the Shinde jewelry exhibition together with the classical art show of Fastest Feet.  The next day is extremely exhausting, as the sound / tech people are trying to scramble together such a highly fine-tuned, technical production.  Guruji performed Sita Haran, and in this particular show he had the mridangam player Ramakrishnan as well… so the stage came alive in a special way with the rhythms and stories of South India ringing in everyone’s ears as they completed their 1st show of the Fastest Feet Winter tour.

Back to Mumbai – this was yet another special show for so many reasons!  Fastest Feet clearly has much love here in Mumbai!  The two days before the show we had press (newspapers, TV, radio, etc.) over interviewing Guruji and Jason.  In addition to Fastest Feet, we opened the show with children of Chhandam-Mumbai giving the invocation.  [Roaring claps from the 1000-seat sold-out audience!!]  Then an advanced young childrens’ group performing, to the adults performing a very catchy piece to Debashisda singing a Rajasthani tune.  After that I performed, and then Fastest Feet began.  This was a really significant beginning because it represented the legacy that Guruji created in India!  And the show being done on India’s Republic Day- how fantastic.  Seema Mehta spearheading all of this on her own, added the perfect touch by putting a giant Indian flag in the backdrop for this auspicious occasion.  Then every single piece in Fastest Feet gets roaring claps of thunder and shouts, waves of energy being bounced back and forth between Guruji, Jason, the musicians, and the audience… sheer excitement and joy emanating from TATA Theater for 2 hours straight!  Finishing emotionally with Raghupathi Raghava and Sare Jahan Se Accha, Guruji and Jason bowing down to the flag, and then ending in each others arms… magical.

Labonee

Building bridges through dance

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Chinese dancer, cultural bridge, dancer, kathak, Zhan Jun

What better way to start off this blog than by highlighting the way in which kathak crosses borders—cultural, generational, geographic? Another local dancer forwarded an article in The Hindu about the passing of Zhang Jun, a Chinese dancer who first arrived in India in 1954, nineteen years old and tasked with building a cultural bridge between China and India. Take a moment to look through the pictures. They speak of another era, of sustaining a classical dance when the political environment (in this case the Chinese Cultural Revolution) is against it, of the passion of a single person and its ability to inspire thousands of others, of the meaning of the arts in society, of the transcendence of dance.

(Update on 1/17/12: a more in-depth article about her life is available here.)

Photo courtesy of Zhang Jun's family