They live to dance

Mona

How can we know the dancer from the dance...wrote William Butler Yeats...and if you go by the decades of sweat and hard work these region-based classical dancers have put in their art, the often quoted line rings true!

As the world celebrates International Dance Day, we chart the journey of these immensely passionate danseuses who have followed their passion.

Rhythm of life

For Divya Dikshit, kathak has been her life ever since she can remember. An uphill task, she has continued her training under renowned guru Munna Shukla, for which she frequents between Delhi and Panchkula. She runs her dance school in Panchkula following the typical guru shishya parampara, the way she has been learning!

“I love Kathak for not only it is the only classical dance from the North but also because of its extensive grammar and the unlimited scope it offers!”

But that such valuable art forms remain unappreciated bogs her down. She concedes, “I can only make people aware, to embrace it or not is entirely one’s own choice!”

A force to reckon with

When as a five-year-old Shobha Koser took up classical dance, she met with resistance. With her mother’s unwavering support; and later her husband’s, she is today a name to reckon with not only in Kathak but also as someone which is the steady force behind Pracheen Kala Kendra.

Her one-and-half-hour performance last month left the audience teary eyes as she danced to Janaki Nath Sahay Kare. Kathak made her achieve in life what she had never imagined, “I never imagined that I would reach where I have, in my wildest dreams.” Six decades into the filed, what makes her content is that classical artistes are getting recognition and respect. Having had a successful stint as a performer, academician, with a book to her name and a PhD, she still does not compromise with her hour-ling riyaaz for anything in life!

Never-ending romance

Whether she followed dance or dance followed her is immaterial now, but Bhartanatyam is the life for Suchitra Mitra. Five-decades-and-a-half, she has learnt many forms of classical dance—Manipuri, Kathak but the way Bharatnatyam fulfils her nothing else does.

“My riyaaz satiates my soul,” opens up Suchitra. As much as she likes to perform, she loves to teach too.

Lost in her moves

Purva often says, “I am my mother’s Abhimanyu.” Kathak has been in her blood, and the daughter of celebrated dancer Shobha Koser runs her own dance school in Ludhiana that is named - Shobhaniya Kala Kendra.

“Dance is divinity for me. When I teach three and three-and-half-year-old students, I feel closer to god more than ever,” shares Purva who says it’s in dance that one can find and also lose oneself!

mona@tribunemail.com