Kathak Dance Syllabi - Dr. Puru Dadheech: a review.

Hi all!

Having now replaced the book I lost, today I bring you a book review of Dr. Puru Dadheech's "Kathak Dance Syllabi" I got this book in Southall (surprise, surprise) from Bina Musicals for £5 which is a little expensive considering it's only Rs. 150-00, which is about £1.60, in India. 

Dr. Dadheech wrote the forward in which he explains that on a trip to the UK in 1993/4 as a guest Kathak examiner, he was approached by a number of teachers who had read his Hindi publications and urged him to write a textbook in English for students of Kathak outside of India. Kathak Dance Syllabi is essentially exactly that; a textbook. It explains the main terms such as tatkar and amad, as well as covering famous dancers, mudras and bhedas. 

At first glance it looks a little more suited to a Bharatanatyam or Kuchipudi textbook since generally in Kathak only a few mudras are regularly used and the book explains and demonstrates all samyuta and asamyuta mudras in detail over the course of an entire chapter. However it must be taken into account that for a dance form to be considered a classical dance form by the Sangeet Natak Akademi of India, it has to originate somewhere in the Natya Shastra, the general Bible on classical Indian dance if you will. As such Kathak dancers, just like Bharatanatyam or Kuchipudi dancers, are expected to know all of the mudras, although perhaps less thoroughly. The nice thing is that next to each picture there is an explanation as to when and how this mudra is used. 

Important terms of Kathak dance

Head movements

Hand gestures

It should also be noted that this book is essentially the textbook for taking exams with the Pandit Ram Sahai Sangit Vidyalaya based in London as well as courses offered by the Prayag Sangeet Samiti of Allahabad, India, the Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Maha Vidhyalaya Mandal of Mumbai, India and the Pracheen Kala Kendra of Chandigarh, India. 

Generally speaking I like this book a lot, I think it has a wealth of information in a compact little book. However, there are certainly some major downfalls. Firstly, it is very badly printed. It begins with the forward, then a paragraph and a half of chapter three, then a page of chapter 4 and then the contents page that begins at chapter 6 and ends with chapter 17, thereby missing out chapters 3,4,5,18,19 and 20. There would appear to be no chapter 1 or 2. Then another paragraph and a half from some unknown chapter, and then it prints half of chapter 3 and 4, then finally on page 13 the full chapter 3 starts and continues thereafter in order up to the end of chapter 20. If you can get past this then the content itself is really useful. Chapter 15 covers the two notation systems for Hindustani classical music which is very useful and on the theory paper for the Pt. Ram Sahai Sangit Vidyalaya exams. Chapters 16-20 are dance notations in various tals. I myself have never really understood these very well, perhaps because the book does not explain them or perhaps because I am after all still only a student. 

Dance notations

The biggest downfall for me is that the English isn't good. I don't mean to sound arrogant but I am both a native English speaker and a linguist. I think that if you are going to write a book in a language that isn't your own, you should at least have a native speaker proof read it. That has clearly not been done and occasionally some sentences don't make sense. These are the two major problems I have often found with books published in India; they are badly printed with incorrect English. That said, this is one of the only textbooks on Kathak written in English and the explanations are gold. I would recommend it to any Kathak students taking exams because it has all the information in one place. 

I should mention that this is only part 1 of what I assume is a two-part series, as the Hindi version is, but I couldn't find part 2. I think that it was overpriced for the two downfalls I have mentioned but alas if it can only be found in one or two shops then you just have to deal with that. Dr. Puru Dadheech is himself an accomplished Kathak dancer and is one of the dancers whose biographies you may choose to learn for the Pt. Ram Sahai Sangit Vidyalaya theory paper. 

There is a short biography of Dr. Puru Dadheech at the back, which is actually one of the few biographies written about him. 

So that's all for now and today I leave you with a quote from one of the only two known Pakistani Bharatanatyam dancers - Indu Mitha. 

"Dance is not about taal, dance is not about conformity to music, dance is about ideas and feelings which are universal but the myths of human beings" 

-Publisher: Bindu Prakashan, Indore, India
-Printed by: Law Book Printers & Publishers, Indore, India
-as well as: Deep Jyoti Printers, Indore, India
-ISBN: 81-900056-7-7