Broto Roy’s Indian “Kathak” Dance Trio featuring Yasmina

Notes on the Program – Kathak dance scored and recited with tabla drum music and melodic cycles played on harmonium.
The compositions are another way of presenting the dancer's and the drummer’s great mastery over rhythmic patterns. The dancer can, on a given metrical cycle, execute fractional, intervals of the beats of a single cycle. This is done by a cross time scanning or by accelerating or slowing this scanning by fractional count. Thus, against a basic pattern of 16 beats, the dancer may execute a pattern of 12 beats by slowing the fractional count or a pattern of 24 beats by increasing the count; making it double to 32 or treble to 48. Normally, the dancer is taught to improvise on a 16 beat pattern in such a manner that all the other rhythmic cycles can be set to the basic 16 beat pattern. The dexterity and the precision of the dancer lies in her absolute synchronization with the first beat of the original metrical pattern. The end of the recited portion of the demonstration is a challenge also from the point of view of perfect manipulation of weight. In the very process of executing these rhythmic patterns, the dancer tries to control the sound of the ankle bells and restrict the sound to the jingling of one or two bells on her ankles or the jingling of the entire hundred to two hundred bells. This is indeed a challenging part of the dancer's training, because while executing these patterns and maintaining the right axis of the body and giving various emphasis to the sound of the bells, the dancer must be absolutely static from the torso upwards. This is a difficult discipline for the dancer, because the feet when tired have a tendency to seek relief through a free use of the pelvic region. The charm of the dancer is in the seemingly static figure producing dynamic sounds.
This particular style of Indian dance called “Kathak” is based on mood, raga music (melody) and rhythmic beat cycles. Its composition is based on North Indian classical music which include religious and secular roots from the 12th century AD. The first category reflects the religious and devotional sentiment while the second one has a clear-cut erotic taste and tang. The singing is done by the drummer which by implication means that the drummer plays the score and recites it with drum language syllables. The dancer has to be an expert in acting out those compositions in choreography. Sometimes a there will be no recitation and then it is known as “Gat Bhava” under which the dancer takes a mythical enactment from the “Gita” – a religious text - between the Indian gods “Radha” and “Krishna” and interprets it simply through mime only. The dancer plays various roles, with her character changing from one to the other is marked by pirouettes and circular turns and spectacular acrobatic leaps. True to life, a Kathak dance recital includes sculpturesque postures, pirouettes and singing, mime, a lot of innovation and storytelling. Kathak's unique intricate footwork, dizzying pirouettes, scintillating rhythmic syllables and instrumental music make it a transcendental experience of aesthetic perfection and great inner beauty. It is one of the classical Indian dance forms which continues today practiced by millions in India.