Spring Concerts 2007
Kathak Dance, Storytelling & North Indian Classical Music With Ross Kent-Sarod and Megan Black-Kathak Dance
Best way to contact us is to call the office at
415 492-8205
Dance Workshop: Please contact us for information about classes and upcoming workshops.
Our magical, devoted and incredibly talented ensemble orchestra features violin with Wallace Harvey, vocals with Phyllis Addison and
tabla with Paul Sihon and Joshua Williams. Vandhana Dance Company: Anya Devi, Monica Caldwell, Henze Marvin, Meera Sarkar, Dyuti Sengupta and Richa Sharma.
Kathak Classes are now on-going with beginners on Saturday and advanced on Sundays. So of course, we hope you will find time to come on one of our passionate journeys in class or on the stage into the 'other realm' where devotion, music and dance combine to elevate the "soul".
Kathak is a sumptuously beautiful dance style that encompasses the old and new in a visually and rhythmically riveting technical style. Its form is alternately devotional, pure technique and storytelling. Tracing its origins back to ancient tribal culture in Northern India, Kathak has absorbed elements from Hindu, Islamic and classical Persian culture along its two-thousand year journey to the present. Vandhana brings traditional Kathak to life with passion and refinement. "Sublime",
"masterful" and "mature." -Indian Express.
Kathak Workshops: Both Beginning/Introductory and Intermediate levels will be available.
Sacred Origins: Pranam - The invocation with which the dance begins, including many of the movements of Puja (devotional offering) will be taught in detail.
Beginning Level: Introduction to Tutkar, (primary footwork technique), and movement structures of Kathak technique. Traveling steps, chukars (turns), and some short compositions will be covered.
Riaz: The method of practice including warm-up exercises and training technique for turns and footwork.
Intermediate Level: Dance Items including Shiva Vandhana, Compositions in Rupaktal and New compositions and footwork in Teental.
Online Kathak Channel available if you are interested in classes or Concerts.
What
is Kathak?
"Yato hasta stato drishti. ...Where the hand is, the eye follows.
Yato drishti stato manaha. ...Where the eye is, the mind follows.
Yato manaha stato bhava. ...Where the mind is, there is the feeling.
Yato bhava stato rasa. ...Where the feeling is, there is the mood."
From the Natya Shastra, a text on the arts, this beautiful quotation and translation was often quoted by my first teacher, Chitresh Das. It embodies the essence of the relationship between movement and mood so essential to the creation of Kathak in its truest form. The word, mood, can here be taken to stand for a state of enlightenment. The pursuit of dance is understood within the ancient teaching system to be a yoga, a path, or set of disciplines which leads the student capable of sustaining the long years of devotion and discipline toward the state of enlightenment.
Kathak is the classical dance of Northern India. It is, by many accounts , more than 2000 years old. Composed of the elements of rhythmic play, devotional gesture and storytelling it is performed with the aid of brass ankle bells and flowing silk costumes. The bells accompany the elaborate rhythmic footwork while the costume accentuates the flowing, lyrical line and the fast, multiple turns for which Kathak is famous. It is unique among the classical dances of India for the natural (non-stylized) way it tells stories and improvises compositions while working in close counterpoint to the accompaniment of Tala (rhythmic structure) and Lahara (melody).
Kathak is traditionally accompanied by classical Noth Indian Hindustani music on instruments such as Sarangi, Sarod or Sitar and Tabla. Its rhythmic structure follows the rhythmic structure of North Indian classical music, that is tosay, it is composed within the structure of Tala. Tala is a system of rhythmic cycle in a chosen number of beats with specific accents and an emphasis on the sum, or first beat of the cycle.
