Bangalore based dancer Madhu Natraj Heri and her Stem Dance Company performed at the Khajuraho Dance Festival recently. In this exclusive column, Madhu shares her experiences...a tour diary...
When we received an invitation to perform at the prestigious Khajuraho Dance Festival 2005, we were completely ecstatic. But soon a feeling of anxiety took over.
How does one make an apt offering through dance to a space like Khajuraho?
My Guru Maya Rao and I sat down and read, researched all the material we could find on the Khajuraho philosophy, sculpture, architecture and slowly a vision shaped up. Given the dynamics of the space, we created pieces based on the concept of the union of energies, the syllable ‘Aum’ as a personification of the synergy of the male and female, of Shiva-Shakti, of love, and chose to keep the feel traditional - and presented our Kathak work.
My husband Amit Heri, a composer and jazz guitarist did a special music recording along with Hindustani Singer - Shankar Shanbhogue. Also featured were compositions of the Dagar Brothers, Altaf Hussein Khan, which were given to Maya ji when she studied with Guru Shambhu Maharaj in Delhi.
The next challenge - even two months before the festival, getting tickets to Khajuraho for a 15-member troupe, was a nightmare! The Indian Airlines flight on which Maya ji was booked, got cancelled three weeks before the festival and combined with her hectic schedule, she couldn’t make it to the festival.
She of course has been to Khajuraho earlier and had in her articulate style already painted a beautiful scenario that we could almost feel!
I went a day ahead of my dancers to make sure all arrangements were in place. I fell asleep on the flight and was woken up with a gentle tap on my shoulder, it was Odissi dancer Surupa Sen, to let me know she was on the same flight. Nice to see a familiar face already, I thought.
We reached Khajuraho at noon. I knew that once my dancers arrived, I would be running around madly to settle them, make sure they see the temples, do a tech run and make sure it works! In short no time for myself. So I booked a taxi and went to see the legendary temples of Khajuraho.
I got myself a guidebook and was walking in when I ran into Nandita Puri, the Kathak Dancer who opened the festival the night before. The temples were stunning, the sculptures looked like they would come to life any moment, the architectural splendour...I had studied about the Khajuraho temples in my Art History classes at the Natya Institute of Kathak and choreography and I had a sense of Déjà vu.
Also what struck me was the similarity to the Somanthpura, Halebid sculptures. My mother Guru Maya Rao is responsible for initiating the Halebid, Somanathapura and Pattadakal Dance festivals during her tenure as Chairperson of the Karnataka Sangeet Nritya Academy, way back in 1989 where renowned dancers and musicians from all over India performed, inspired by the Khajuraho festival.
The Nrityagram team and I watched the evening’s performance together. Orissi by Jyoti Srivastav and Kuchipudi by Dr Uma Rao.
As we walked in, we met Dr Poornima Pandey, Dr Sunil Kothari, Mr Palnitkar - the Director of the Ustad Allaudin Khan Academy (the organization that puts together this festival) and others.
Our hopes to get a good night’s sleep went flying out of the window as we were informed by the Doordarshan anchor that they wanted to interview us at 7 in the morning in front of the temples! Did an interview for Doordarshan and refused a solo photo session, as my team was arriving later that morning and I wanted them to be part of the session.
The troupe arrived at 10.30 am and we were at the temples by noon and hired a guide, as time was at a premium we had scheduled a rehearsal at 4 and the performance would begin at 7.
Our guide turned out to be an irritant who insisted on making lewd jokes about the sculptures, concentrating only on the banal interpretation of the beautiful eroticism! We got rid of him and did a quick photo shoot with Srivatsa, a talented photographer and artiste from Bangalore, who traveled with us.
We rushed back and were at the venue with our make up on, to do a tech run. The Odissi dancers of Nrityagram performed first and then we were on stage with new compositions and old pieces revived specially for the festival - Aum - Energies in Tandem, Ardhanaareshwar shloka and Dhamaar, Prabandh, Thumri- the music of love, Sargam - inspired by the Sura sundaris in the Khajuraho sculptures, Taandav- reflections in Jhaptaal, Chaturang.
The energy on stage that night was very special, all of us felt it...
Performance over, we rushed back to our hotels to change, got dinner packed and rushed out of Khajuraho to catch the KK Express from Jhansi. Also our Administrator had by mistake booked us on a train, which left 5 hours after the show! This we found out only three days prior to leaving and as you can imagine, couldn’t change the booking!
Jhansi is a 4-hour drive. On the way the organizers made us change vehicles at Chattarpur as we were entering UP from Madhya Pradesh and they didn't have a license!
It was 11 pm already and no sign of the vehicles. Anyway, to cut a long story short we made it to the Jhansi station two minutes before the train left. I have never in my life been so happy to see a train!
You can write to Madhu Nataraj Heri at stemdance@hotmail.com
If you have performed at the Khajuraho festival, share your experiences with our readers.
If you're a musician or a dancer travelling for performances, share your tour diary with us. Mail us at editor@kutcheribuzz.com
Here are the mails we received at KutcheriBuzz:
Italian dancer at Khajuraho
Reading the diary of Madhu Natraj Heri, I felt like writing my experience and sharing my feelings. I was in Khajuraho the opening night of the festival as part of Yamini Krishnamurti’s small group of dancers. We left Delhi by train the day before the performance and reached Jhansi early morning. We got all of us in a jeep and drove to Khajuraho. When we arrived after four hours packed in the car we first went to the hotel and tried to cope with some bodyache and all sorts of tensions! Somehow we began feeling something special in the afternoon when it was time to start making up for the show.
All of a sudden I remembered I was at the venue and one of the temples was in full lights as a stunning backdrop of the stage. Everything seemed so big and powerful! I had this similar feeling only when I performed on a stage in front of the Colosseum in Rome (By the way I am an Italian married to an Indian). When it was my turn to dance my solo I really could not control the joy and the thrill. Luckily my item was 'Natanam Adinar', all about tandav and the bliss of Shiva’s dance of creation. My Guru had also combined Bharatanatyam with some western classical ballet steps for this particular piece, giving me a great challenge. I guess most of the huge audience there appreciated my efforts, but I think I was smiling a little too much...
Giovanna Leva Joglekar
