I saw Nrityagram! Dance! In person! In Utah! :D
Yes, us wee Intermountain West inhabitants don't get to see very many live performances of Indian dance, especially of the caliber of Nrityagram, so this was quite a treat! On March 14, Nrityagram performed in Provo at Brigham Young University (BYU) as part of its Performing Arts Series this year. I was initially
stunned to hear Nrityagram was coming to BYU, a private religious university owned and ran by the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints (the LDS or "Mormons" - remember Romney?) and located in a conservative and religiously-homogenous area. While Utah isn't the most hip and happening place overall, there are some trendy and diverse areas and offerings concentrated in Salt Lake City proper and the University of Utah which is a respected, public research university. But Provo, and BYU, down to the south is a different story!
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| BYU library's Music and Dance entrance |
But now I know better than to be surprised by BYU's snagging of Nrityagram. For one, BYU seems to have a great dance program and regularly hosts diverse visiting performing artists. BYU's Contemporary Dance Theatre has even
visited and performed in India, and their International Folk Dance Ensemble has performed Indian dances/music. But here's the real reason: Over the past year I have uncovered a little secret. BYU has a surprising collection of Indian dance materials in its
library! The dance collection contains rare pamphlets and booklets like a 1965 booklet on Kalakshetra, a 1963 pamphlet on Balasaraswati, and a 1949 program for Uday Shankar's American tour! A limited-edition original of Ragini Devis' 1928 book
Nrityanjali is there as are a number of titles by Indian dance scholars Sunil Kothari and Mohan Khokar. Of more recent dancers, Padma Subramaniam's three-volume set on Karanas, Jayalakshmi Eshwar's pictorial guide to
Bharatanatyam adavus, and VP Dhananjayan's book on Indian dance are in the collection. There's even a small set of volumes from the amazing
Sruti magazine published in India! And tons more!
Clearly this collection indicates acquisition policies supporting detailed and authentic Indian dance materials and also the support of Indian dance enthusiasts who have donated rare originals. Or maybe one of the librarians there is an Indian dance nerd! The collection is likely driven by course offerings given that BYU offers a number of individual classes on ethnic dance techniques around the world, Indian included. Nrityagram's visit and lecture-demonstrations are the cherry on top this year! I hope the students know how lucky they are!
Thoughts on "Samhara" and Kandyan Dance
So back to Nrityagram! Images of Nrityagram dancers were among the first things that drew me
into Indian classical dance forms years ago when I first discovered
them. I specifically remember gazing at images like
this one
over at Flickr. The simple, cotton practice saris and absolute joy of
the dancers is so engaging and led to my love for performances in
practice saris as collected in my
post on classical practice dances in
Indian cinema.
The performance on March 14, "Samhara," was a collaboration between the three Odissi dancers from Nrityagram (Surupa Sen, Bijayini Satpathy, and Pavithra Reddy) and two female Kandyan dancers from the Chitrasena Dance Company, Thaji Dias and Mithilani Munasingha (and of course five live musicians!). Kandyan (or “up-country”) dance is one of the three main dance forms
identified with the majority Sinhala ethnic community in Sri Lanka and
is considered Sri Lanka’s national dance.
