Evening all!
It's been a while since I wrote a Kathak entry so here goes.
Today's class was a mix of many things: tatkaar, laybandh, amad to name a few. I'd like to share some of my thoughts on Kathak and my progress in this entry. I think that as much as Kathak is a dance tradition with rules and regulations (don't think I can't see the whites of your eyes!) it also requires the dancer to be a free spirit, more so than Bharatanatyam in my opinion. Kathak is a dance that is so intertwined with the way our body moves naturally that sometimes I think you have to forget what is right or wrong and let your body move. My Guru today made us all laugh by telling us that we were all concentrating so hard on doing our spins that we looked like we were going to through daggers at someone each time! This is what I mean, as Kathak dancers we are required to be uniform, stick to the rules, regulated but a spin is also an expression of joy, a sense of loosing your whole self in the momentum of this little cylinder of motion that you create around yourself.
I feel I've become a little quieter in class these days, which has led to my classmates wondering if something is up, actually if I'm honest with myself I think it's because I am slowly learning a much deeper appreciation for the art then I have felt before. There is a difference between love and appreciation, I loved Kathak from the first class, just me and my Guru and my Mum for support, it was my Guru's first class in the area and no-one else showed up. Appreciation however seems to be developing now, after five years of training. It is a sense, I believe, of accepting every aspect of Kathak as a part of myself. Not just the beauty and perfection of it but also the sweat and tears and utter despair at times. Because an art after all encompasses all of that.
Sweat, tears and utter despair are conquered by one thing; motivation. As an artist I think a lot of people expect me to have total devotion and motivation for dance at all times, but in actual fact I am only human and my motivation is somewhat lacking at times. It isn't easy to repeat a single movement ten or twenty times and still not get it perfect and sometimes it does knock you off your broom so to speak. We were learning a variation of an amad (I think) today and there are three really fast spins which my Guru substituted with something else if we weren't able to do the spins and I couldn't do them. Normally when I don't get something in Kathak, I try again and try not to get too disheartened but that didn't happen today. I was totally destroyed at not being able to do these spins! It may sound a little over the top but I was just so disappointed in myself.
I think for someone to think that to be an artist is to be a free and happy soul with no cares in the world, is a dream. We have to struggle and dig deep to find that motivation to continue and it isn't easy but we do try and do continue because if there is one thing an artist does have it is a love for his art. Kathak is slowly becoming an integral part of my life, and I don't mean spinning to the kettle to make a cup of tea instead of walking (which yes does happen!), I mean that the way I carry myself, the way I think and feel, is drawn from Kathak in many ways, I can't necessarily put it into words but Kathak is becoming a part of my identity as much as an art that I am learning.
We all go on journeys at some point in our lives to find ourselves, to figure out who we are and who we want to be. For me I have been on that journey and found my answers but dance is almost like a second journey, figuring out who I am in the context of Kathak or Bharatanatyam. I believe my journey to finding my place in the world of Kathak has only just begun and it is not going to be an easy path, but then nothing worthwhile ever is easy!
Happy dancing!
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