Nrityabharati Kathak Dance Academy’s seventy fifth Year Celebrations Will Highlight The Contributions Of Its Founder, Pioneering Dance Guru Rohini Bhate
Nrityabharati Kathak Dance Academy, Pune, an autonomous institute established by Rohini Bhate in 1947, is getting ready to launch a year-long celebration, titled ‘Amrut Mahotsav’, to mark its seventy fifth 12 months.
The institute, now with 16 branches world wide, has deliberate month-to-month schedules of performances, panel discussions and interviews with specialists in Kathak and allied dance types, in addition to its personal senior members. The occasions will intention to carry out the salient options of founder Rohini’s distinctive Kathak type, which is thought for its depth and texture in addition to a totally educational strategy. Trained below gurus like Lachhu Maharaj of the Lucknow Gharana and Mohanrao Kalyanpurkar of the Jaipur Gharana, Rohini codified a complete curriculum for Kathak that drew from each these traditions.
Rohini, who handed away in 2008, was a dancer, choreographer, instructor and scholar who took a holistic view of Indian tradition and aesthetics. Her strategy to abhinaya was analytical and her choreographic works, formed by her understanding of music — specifically, the construction and aesthetics of talas — and literature, bear a definite stamp.
Groomed in Hindustani music by Keshav Rao Bhole and Vasantrao Deshpande, Rohini principally composed music herself for her dance creations. and had a knack for selecting probably the most applicable ragas and talas. She enhanced Kathak’s repertoire with a big corpus of works, usually adapting oral custom, and her productions included conventional solos, group choreography, dance-dramas, movies and performs, and works on summary ideas like time and panch-tanmatra, exploring the essence of the 5 cosmic parts.
A recipient of many honours, together with the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, Kalidas Samman and Maharashtra Gaurav Puraskar, Rohini was nominated a Fellow of Sangeet Natak Akademi in 2006. She authored plenty of books, together with Majhi Nritya-Sadhana, a Marathi translation of Isadora Duncan’s autobiography; Kathak Darpan Deepika, an edited model of Nandikeshvara’s Sanskrit treatise Abhinaya Darpana; and at last, Laheja, which covers her personal artistic endeavours and insights.
Rohini used to say, “Dance doesn’t signify merely pleasure nor fascinating physical activity. It awakens the soul and arouses a sense of elation rarely experienced otherwise. What is dance if not prayer?” She was revered past the world of Kathak, and the late Bharatanatyam exponent and guru Kalanidhi Narayanan grew near her after Kamaladevi Chattopadhyay, the then chairperson of Sangeet Natak Akademi, commissioned the 2 of them to work collectively on abhinaya padas of their respective dance types. Kalanidhi stated of Rohini, “She is a magician of rhythm, who imparts an appearance of substance to the unsubstantial.”
Nrityabharati’s festivities shall be held on-line, with the opening occasion, titled ‘Smruti Gandha’ (Fragrant Memories), showcasing an edited model of the golden jubilee celebrations from their archives.
This shall be a uncommon alternative to observe Bhate’s performances and her compositions offered by senior disciples, most of who at the moment are completed soloists, lecturers, choreographers and researchers. ‘Smruti Gandha’ shall be streamed from 7 p.m. to eight.15 p.m. on July 10, the institute’s basis day, on its Facebook web page .
