Ludhiana, September 18
Padamshri Shovna Narayan had the audience eating out of her hand by her scintillating performance. She was performing under the aegis of SPIC-MACAY-Virasat-2001. Before starting her dance performance she explained the genesis of all classical dances and how they were the manifestation of man’s expression of gratitude and praise for its creator. Music is adored by gods too. Most of Indian gods have musical instruments in their hands like Lord Shiva has dumroo. Krishna has a flute and Saraswati has a veena.
The Kathak dance can be split into ‘katha’ — which means a story and ‘kathakar’ that is a story-teller. In the ancient times the Brahmins performed the dances and an inspirational story was narrated so that people would tread the right path. In the Gangetic belt, women dancers were called ‘bhaktans. The costumes of Kathak were not divorced from reality and dancers wore everyday’s costumes.
She told the students that dance is a form of yoga and has eight constituents of yoga.
She delighted the audience with her performance of ‘abhinay’ of a well known sequence from Mahabharat. Without a word, through her action, expressions, her gestures she depicted the scene of Yudhishter gambling away Draupadi. She could bring out the pain and humiliation and helplessness of Draupadi at her disrobing. Arrival of Lord Krishna, at a piquant moment , and her visible relief, annoyance of Dushasan was explicitly brought out by Shovna.
Her programme was interactive as she involved students in the guessing game. She would through her foot movements and her actions depict the movement of some animal and students enjoyed guessing them.
She performed one of her favourite piece ‘Sakhi mujhe kuch keh
kar jate’. The story brings out the pathos of Yashodra when Siddarth leaves her and the son to know the cause of pain and sorrow in the world. She laments that had he told her she would have sent him happily. When becoming Buddha, he returns, she gives away her son in ‘bhiksha’. The poem written by Maithli Sharan Gupt and Shovna’s performance transported the audience into that era.
Later, talking to the press she said that she had the joie- de- vivre as she loves being a civil servant and a dancer. Since she had been dancing from the age of three, she could not imagine a life without Kathak. The interaction with other forms of dances like ‘ballet’ was good as it made one appreciate the finer points of other dances, while it made one appreciate the beauties of one’s own dance form better.
