Dancing all Along!!

It was the return of the prodigal daughter in my case, when I returned to my dance school after a five year long hiatus. I started learning dance since childhood, but somewhere along, I gave it up. As if to assist my decision, my studies came along the way and my priorities changed. It wasn't that I shunned myself completely from it; I became a “bathroom dancer”, practicing the tatkaars in the privacy of my bathroom! But I never resumed my training again properly. A few weeks earlier, my sister informed me that there would be a workshop in my dance school and they called me to participate in it. I was obviously reluctant in the beginning – joining it would only demoralize me further to the point of not dancing at all. But after a lot of persuasion from my mom and my sister, I joined. The workshop was a four day programme, and the guest teacher was Mahua Shankar, a famous Kathak dance exponent and a disciple of Pt. Birju Maharaj. In a last moment attempt to redeem myself, I just practiced whatever I remembered. To worsen my condition, I lost all my written records of whatever I learnt so far and my ghungroo as well! It was going to be a disaster all through.

The first day – a disaster it was indeed! I danced to realize that I did remember all the bols, but my feet lost that clarity of movement and the least number of spins left me dizzy! I was the only horrible dancer who made mistakes at the basics. It then led to Mahua ma’am to enter the dance floor… and what a sight she was.

She just breathed life into a very drab thing, a complete metamorphosis of the simplest bols. I expected her to be a strict teacher. But she was everything else than being strict. The fine nuances regarding the expressions or the hand movements were taught with great care. And over the next days, I fell in love with dance all over again. I would return home and dance was all that would revolve in my head all the time. We learnt a composition, called Ardhanga sung by Maharaj ji himself on Ardh – Nareshwar. Before our training would begin formally, Mahua ma’am ensured that the concept behind the composition was understood by every student, such that it would become easier to understand its mood and dance accordingly. It was an enthralling experience, to learn something new within such a short period of time. On the third day, my sister joined me in the workshop and we learnt purely classical and technical stuff. We would gaze at awe when ma’am would demonstrate it to us, but soon would realize how difficult it actually was when we had to do it by ourselves!

On the final day of the workshop, we were supposed to perform whatever we learnt so far. We were informed earlier about it and were told to dress accordingly. None of us sisters took it seriously and just came dressed in formal salwars with the least amount of make – up possible! Only when we did reach the school, we realized how plainly dressed we were! Students of all ages were decked up to the brink and everyone took the performance bit so seriously, it was quite unnerving. The morning was spent practicing (with me forgetting nearly everything!) and ended with ma’am recording all the dances that she taught.

Finally, in the afternoon, all the students performed their dances in their respective groups, the best being the junior group, dancing with glee to “sabzee puri”, and “kharbooza” and “rasgulla”! The audience enjoyed it to the fullest, watching the young dancers perform! After all the performances, it was the teachers’ turn to perform. Mahua ma’am along with Srivastav sir performed their own version of Ardhanga, which although unplanned and un-choreographed, was a feast for the eyes. All in all, it was an amazing experience of four days – re-uniting with dance and regaining a long lost friend.