So today I went to I had the opportunity to go a dance performance of the wonderful Malabika Sen again! The event was hosted by a ladies study group in Kolkata, mainly by the rich and well-to-do Marwari business women. The show was held in someone's house, how on earth this mansion was a house is unbelievable. It was held in their garden, a really beautiful setting.
The show began with a boring introduction in bad English (more about that to come) and then a song by a lady who, I kid you not, had had trainers made of the same fabric as her kanjivaram silk sari! Then the hostess began to introduce the first dance act, a dance by the women of the study group, supposedly comprising of kathak and bharatanatyam, unsurprisingly it was awfully done, pretty much an insult to classical arts. That was followed by a lovely Odissi performance, sadly I can't remember the dancer's name. The only annoying thing was that her music stopped halfway through which must have been awful for her. Aunty however thought she was only mediocre.
Then came the wonderful Malabika Sen with a Bharatanatyam piece, Kali Kavutwam, with a couple of Kuchipudi movements mixed in. She was perfect as per usual, and everytime she enacted the Goddess Kali stabbing a demon you felt like she was stabbing you. This was then followed by the hostess giving a long speech on the history Kathak and then introducing three women from the study group to perform Kathak. Kathak my bum, it was an absolute insult to the art form. That was followed by a performance of dandiya, the Gujarati folk dance, which was quite fun and then finally there was a Manipuri dancer accompanied by some Tangta fighters. As Aunty explained she used to be a wonderful Manipuri dancer but she's a bit old now to perform, it was a tad lifeless.
Some photos from before the show...
The show began with a boring introduction in bad English (more about that to come) and then a song by a lady who, I kid you not, had had trainers made of the same fabric as her kanjivaram silk sari! Then the hostess began to introduce the first dance act, a dance by the women of the study group, supposedly comprising of kathak and bharatanatyam, unsurprisingly it was awfully done, pretty much an insult to classical arts. That was followed by a lovely Odissi performance, sadly I can't remember the dancer's name. The only annoying thing was that her music stopped halfway through which must have been awful for her. Aunty however thought she was only mediocre.
Then came the wonderful Malabika Sen with a Bharatanatyam piece, Kali Kavutwam, with a couple of Kuchipudi movements mixed in. She was perfect as per usual, and everytime she enacted the Goddess Kali stabbing a demon you felt like she was stabbing you. This was then followed by the hostess giving a long speech on the history Kathak and then introducing three women from the study group to perform Kathak. Kathak my bum, it was an absolute insult to the art form. That was followed by a performance of dandiya, the Gujarati folk dance, which was quite fun and then finally there was a Manipuri dancer accompanied by some Tangta fighters. As Aunty explained she used to be a wonderful Manipuri dancer but she's a bit old now to perform, it was a tad lifeless.
Some photos from before the show...
Ok so now let's talk about these high society women. The first thing you notice about them is that being overdressed quite simply doesn't exist. Then I noticed that they were all speaking in English. No Hindi, no Bangla, no Marwari; all English! They all held themselves with an heir of arrogance and all of the hello's, long time no see's seemed so forced. One woman behind me came up to talk to some people and I heard her say "I forgot they weren't talking to you", it was like an Indian Eastender's except there was so much about it all that wasn't Indian. Yes they had incense constantly burning, yes they were all in Indian clothes, but there was very little Indian language, very little Indian anything in the way they acted.
A few things annoyed be about this high society. One was that the introduction to every performance went into great deal about classical dance and Hindu mythology but in truth none of them had a clue about the classical arts at all. They were Indian and didn't appear to know the first thing about their thousands of years of history. The pathetic example of so-called Kathak proved that. The other thing I found irritating was what I interpreted as a denial of all things Indian. I will never understand why someone can think their own language is beneath them and how the language of the people that oppressed them for hundreds of years is better. The whole programme was presented in English too, again this I will never understand. I know for a fact that everyone sitting there understood Hindi perfectly. From what I know everyone in India except in the South, studies Hindi at school and takes exams in it. As the national language, nearly all Indians (again except in the South) can read and understand Hindi, if not speak it well. Why then would you choose to read from a script in a foreign language? It had to be read from a script because it was clear they didn't understand half of what they were reading. They couldn't pronounce any of it, they used words we never use in English. I'm not saying this to be arrogant about the English language, I think it's great that they can all communicate in English but what I have a problem with is when they put English above another mutual language that everyone can speak, understand and pronounce better.
In other news I didn't dance today because to be quite frank my body can't handle dance every single day just yet, so I've decided to do 5 days of dance and then 2 days of just watching and following other classes.
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