Kathak
Kathak is one of the eight major forms of Indian classical dance. Its origin is attributed to the traveling bards in ancient northern India known as Kathakaar, who communicated stories from the Hindu epics through dance, songs, and music. Its name derives from the Sanskrit word kathaa which means "story", and kathakaar which means "the one who tells a story" or "to do with stories". As time went on the dance-form acquired aspects of technical movement expertise in addition to the story-telling features, so that nowadays performers usually give equal emphasis to both.
Kathak evolved during the Bhakti movement, particularly by incorporating the childhood and stories of the Hindu deity Krishna, as well as independently in the courts of north Indian kingdoms. During the period of Mughal rule, the emperors were patrons of Kathak dance and actively promoted it in their royal courts. Kathak performances include Urdu ghazal and commonly used instruments brought during the Mughal period. As a result, it is the only Indian classical dance form to feature Persian elements.
Stylistically, the Kathak dance form emphasizes rhythmic foot movements, with the ankles adorned with small bells and the movement harmonized to the music and especially its rhythm. The legs and torso are generally straight, and if a story is being told, it is through a developed vocabulary based on the gestures of arms and upper body movement, facial expressions, neck movements, eyes and eyebrow movement, stage movements, bends, and turns. The main focus of the dance becomes the eyes and the foot movements. The eyes work as a medium of communication of the story the dancer is trying to communicate. With the eyebrows the dancer gives various facial expressions.
Kathak is mainly found in three styles or schools, called "gharana", named after the cities where the Kathak dance tradition evolved – Jaipur, Banares, and Lucknow. These forms used to be quite distinct in their style and presentation but in recent years have converged to an extent, although they still retain their specialities. The Jaipur gharana focuses on technical expertise, with long pure dance compositions and fast spins and footwork; the Banaras gharana focuses on footwork and story-telling about Krishna, and Lucknow gharana focus more on grace and elegance. There is a fourth, much smaller gharana which evolved in the court of the king of Raigarh, where the king invited representatives of all three gharanas to his court to serve as court dancers and teachers. The result produced some unique compositions, known as the Raigarh gharana.
Kathak is a performance art that has survived and thrived as an oral tradition, innovated and taught from one generation to another verbally and through practice. It transitioned, adapted, and integrated the tastes of the Mughal courts in the 16th and 17th centuries, particularly by Akbar, but stagnated and went into decline during the British colonial era, then was reborn as India gained independence and sought to rediscover its ancient roots and a sense of national identity through the arts.
Etymology and nomenclature
The term Kathak is rooted in the Vedic term Katha which means "story, conversation, traditional tale". It differs from the numerous folk dance forms found in the north and other parts of the Indian subcontinent.The Kathak dancers in ancient India were traveling bards and were known as Kathakas or Kathakar.
Kathak has inspired simplified regional variants, such as the Bhavai – a form of rural theatre focusing on the tales of Hindu people – and one which emerged in the medieval era, and is presently found in Gujarat, Rajasthan, and Madhya Pradesh. Another variant that emerged from ancient Kathak is Thumri.
Thumri was developed by the tawaif community who were called "nautch" dancers by the British. Their history as Kathak dancers have been erased in modern India. Pallabi Chakravorty. .''"Bells Of Change: Kathak Dance, Women And Modernity In India", also see "The Tawaif And The Item Girl: A Struggle For Identity"''
History
According to Mary Snodgrass, the Kathak tradition of India is traceable to 400 BCE. The earliest surviving text with Kathak roots is the Natya Shastra, attributed to sage Bharata. Its first complete compilation is dated to between 200 BCE and 200 CE, but estimates vary between 500 BCE and 500 CE.The most studied version of the Natya Shastra text consists of about 6000 verses structured into 36 chapters. Natalia Lidova states that the text describes the theory of Tāṇḍava dance, the theory of rasa, of bhāva, expression, gestures, acting techniques, basic steps, and standing postures – all of which are part of Indian classical dances, including Kathak. Dance and performance arts, states this ancient Hindu text, are a form of expression of spiritual ideas, virtues, and the essence of scriptures.
The 2nd century BCE panels found in Bharhut show the dancers in a vertical stance with their arms' positions already suggesting today's Kathak movements. Most of the dancers have one arm near the ear in a
The term Kathakas in the sense of "storytellers" appears in ancient Hindu texts, such as the Mahabharata:
Bards, actors, dancers, songsters, and musical reciters of legends and stories are mentioned hundreds of times in the Hindu Epics.
Bhakti movement era
Textual studies suggest that Kathak as a classical dance form likely started in Banares and from there migrated northwest to Lucknow, Jaipur, and other parts of north and northwest India. The Lucknow tradition of Kathak dance attributes the style to a Bhakti movement devotee named Ishwari from the Handia village in Prayagraj, Uttar Pradesh, who credited Hindu god Krishna appearing in his dream and asking him to develop "dance as a form of worship". Ishwari taught his descendants, who in turn preserved the learning and developments through an oral tradition over six generations, ultimately yielding the Lucknow version of the Kathak dance – a family tree that is acknowledged in both Hindu and Muslim music-related Indian literature.The evolution in Kathak dance theme during the Bhakti movement centered primarily around divine Krishna, his lover Radha, and milkmaids – around legends and texts such as the Bhagavata Purana found in the Vaishnavism tradition of Hinduism. The love between Radha and Krishna became symbolism for the love between Atman and the supreme source, a theme that dance ballet and mimetic plays of Kathak artists expressed. Although central Asian influence of Kathak rapid whirls has been proposed, Sangitaratnakara, a 13th-century Sanskrit text on Indian classical music and dance in Chapter 4 mentions a dance movement with rapid whirling around like a wheel keeping the arms in the Dola pose and bending the body inwards called 'Cakramandala'. It is employed in worshipping gods and in vigorous movement.
The emergence of Raslila, mainly in the Braj region was an important development. It combined in itself music, dance, and the narrative. Dance in Raslila, however, was mainly an extension of the basic mime and gestures of the Kathakars or story-tellers which blended easily with the existing traditional dance.
Mughal era
With the coming of the Mughals, this dance form received a new impetus. A transition from the temple courtyard to the palace durbar took place which necessitated changes in presentation. In both Hindu and Muslim courts, Kathak became highly stylized and came to be regarded as a sophisticated Islamic form of entertainment. Under the Muslims, there was a greater stress on nritya and bhavag - the dance's graceful, expressive, and sensuous dimensions.The Mughal era courts and nobles accepted Kathak as a form of aristocratic entertainment, which low income families were willing to provide. According to Drid Williams:
Over time, the Kathak repertoire added Persian and Central Asian themes, such as the whirling of Sufi dance. The dress replaced sari with items that bared midriff and included a transparent veil of the type common with medieval Harem dancers. When the colonial European officials began arriving in India, the Kathak court entertainment they witnessed was a synthesis of the ancient Indian tradition and Central Asian-Persian dance form.
British Raj era
With the expansion of British colonial rule in 19th-century India, Kathak along with all other classical dance forms were discouraged and it went into decline. This was in part the result of the Victorian morality of sexual repressiveness along with Anglican missionaries who criticized Hinduism. Reverend James Long, for example, proposed that Kathak dancers should forget ancient Indian tales and Hindu legends, and substitute them with European legends and Christian tales. Missionaries recorded their frustration in Church Missionary Review when they saw Hindu audiences applaud and shout "Ram, Ram" during Kathak performances.The seductive gestures and facial expressions during Kathak performances in Temples and family occasions were caricatured in The Wrongs of Indian Womanhood, published at the start of the 20th century, as evidence of "harlots, debased erotic culture, slavery to idols and priests" tradition, and Christian missionaries demanded that this must be stopped, launching the "anti-dance movement" or "anti-nautch movement" in 1892. Officials and newspapers dehumanized the Kathak dancers and the sources of patronage were pressured to stop supporting the Kathak performing "nautch girls". Many accused the dance form as a front for prostitution, while revivalists questioned the constructed histories by the colonial writers.
Not only did missionaries and colonial officials ridicule the Kathak dancers, Indian men who had been educated in British institutions and had adapted to Victorian prudery also joined the criticism, states Margaret Walker, possibly because they had lost their cultural connection, no longer understood the underlying spiritual themes behind the dance, and assumed this was one of the "social ills, immoral and backward elements" in their heritage that they must stamp out. However, the Hindu families continued their private tutoring and kept the Kathak art alive as an oral tradition. Kathak teachers also shifted to training boys to preserve the tradition, as most of the 20th-century ridicule had been directed at Kathak "nautch girls".
Kathak was brought to the attention of audiences outside India in the early 20th century through Kalkaprasad Maharaj.