Dancers dressed in green costumes embellished with sparkling gold welcomed the audience to a “regal evening of dance” at the Darbar Kathak dance show at the National Arts Centre on Oct. 16.
ArohaFest is an Indian arts and cultural festival that featured more than 100 artists in several events from Oct. 14 to 19. Darbar Kathak was the ticketed feature performance starring Anjali Patil and students from Aroha Fine Arts, Patil’s dance company.
Narrator and dancer Sharmin Siddique opened the show, speaking in a rhythm and cadence in sync with the dance style.
“I invite you into a world where distilled love is the essence of life,” she said. “A world in which love becomes ‘rubaroo’ [face to face] or united with the luminous spirit within us all.”
The evening was bustling behind the scenes. Sanvi Purohit, one of the Kathak dancers in the show, said she woke up at 6 a.m. to get her hair and makeup done before attending the all-day pre-show tech rehearsal.
“Before the performance was about to happen, I was walking in circles and trying to put my mind to it. I was so nervous,” Purohit said. “We did tech rehearsals before and none of the executions were exactly perfect.”
Despite the nerves, Purohit said they didn’t affect the final dance performance.
“I was trying to tell myself, ‘Oh, you should be counting, make sure you know what’s happening next,’ but my mind just went completely blank,” she said.
Darbar Kathak featured multiple dance pieces quartered off with vivid narration in French and English, with many Hindu phrases included as well. The narration used rhythm, colour and religious allegories to set the scene and immerse the audience in the “royal experience.”
The third piece was more than 16 minutes long and featured a solo for each dancer, including Purohit.
“My main goal was to make sure I nailed that solo because that was the one part where everyone’s eyes will be on me,” Purohit said. “No one’s eyes are going to go to the back. Everyone’s going to know where I mess up.”
Regardless of the audience’s extra attention, Purohit was satisfied and said she met her goal.
The other side of the theatre was filled with captivated audience members of all ages.
Sucharita Ganesh, a former Kathak dancer from India, was among them. She came to the show to scout out Kathak groups to potentially join since she recently moved to Canada.
“If I get to watch a lot of shows, I’ll get an idea of what’s going on and which is the best one,” Ganesh said.
She said Darbar Kathak differed from her previous Kathak experiences.
“Kathak means a lot of the beats will be higher and a lot of movements will be fast, but here it’s pretty much slow,” she said.
Depending on their previous knowledge of Kathak, Ganesh said audience members likely came in with different expectations of the dance style.
“I’ll expect them to come with a blank page if they know the art form already. If they’re new to it, then they’ll definitely enjoy it.”
Despite the differences from her traditional understanding of the dance form, Ganesh said she enjoyed the performance all the same.
“The dancers were excellent. I loved the Krishna portion. It was so good, so expressive,” she said.
The dancers’ performance immersed the audience through facial expressions, providing “justice” to the art form, Ganesh said.
“Even for a person who doesn’t know the language, they’re able to convey through their expression,” she said. “That defines dance.”
Featured Image by Kyla Silva/The Charlatan.
