At the 20th international aviation conference held in the city, the topic ‘India: From Tradition to Modernity’ was explored. But not in the usual conversational style, instead through a dance that mingled vocabulary of the classical, folk, martial forms by Natya Stem Dance Kampni. The Bengaluru-based group has earned a reputation for bringing enchanting choreography accompanied by original music. While the troupe’s dance predominantly stems from Kathak, Madhu Nataraj, the director of Kampni, began exploring fresh forms of dance vocabulary in 1995.
The group is soon slated to return again. This time, however, to perform “pure Kathak” at ‘Nrityotsav’ by the Telugu University. The Kathak repertoire is performed in its purity as passed on by Maya Rao (Madhu’s mother) and her guru Abhinaya Chakravarti Shambhu Maharaj of the Lucknow Gharana.
To bring in contemporary flavour, Madhu incorporates movements from across the spectrum —– jazz to sports. The presentation is further enriched with “collaborative” music with the likes of “Anil Biswas, Dagar brothers to contemporary musicians like Grammy-awardee Ricky Kej and Taufiq Khureshi.”
Over 20 years, Kampni has performed in various, and some very unusual, spaces. Naming some of the “too many” memorable performances, Madhu says, “Creating site-specific work in the middle of a rain forest, performance in the middle of a lake and immediately thereafter in the middle of Bengaluru traffic with German artiste Catrine Val.”.
But the world hasn’t always been so receptive. “When I started doing contemporary dance, some purists would say ‘why does such a good Kathak dancer have to stand on her head’,” she recalls.
Even now, there is one hard truth for people. “I think the most common question asked is ‘So, what else do you do?’ People still find it hard to believe that dance is a full-time career,” Madhu says. Apart from performing in over 30 countries, the Kampni has held outreach programmes to take dance into the public domain.
