Indian dancing

KATHAK

SUMMING UP

In music, movement, and plan Kathak lacks the wealth of finished attistty and technique that Bharata Natyam and Kathakali both possess, but it has grace and delicacy. It is rather like a Moghul minaret, elegant and beautiful but with no very solid foundation. Romanticism is the burden of it, and its appeal is therefore purely lyrical. It is no wonder that it found so much favour in the courts of the Moghuls, particularly of Akbar the Great; those rulers were aesthetes par excellence, as monuments such as the Taj Mahal at Agra, the Jumma Masjid at Delhi, and other Moghul buildings testify.

Kathak is, in the main, a /asya, or feminine, art. From its superficial aspects has sprung a degenerate style known as the Indian nauich. This employs merely the sensuous elements in Kathak, and is used by nantch gitls with the sole purpose of arousing the baser passions.

Apart from the leading exponents of Kathak, who have already been mentioned, the late Menaka must take credit for having brought Kathak into prominence in the big cities of India and throughout the Western world. At Menaka’s dance centre in Khandala, now disbanded, were trained many young dancers, among whom Damayanti Joshi is best known. Of the younger generation, Kumudini Jayaker is the most outstanding performer of the powerful pure Kathak technique; she excels in Kathak itself, and does not use it simply as a medium for performing ballet-items. Sadhona Bose, the Indian film star, did much, in the early forties, to popularize the North Indian school.

Kathak, with its tinsel charm, comes as a change that gratifies the senses after the deeper and mote spiritual experience of the sterner dance forms. The creative artist may nevertheless find in Kathak opportunities to produce new and ever-changing shades of beauty and movement.

Hil