Key features of an intelligent Indian classical dance performance? 'It's a chemical process of responses,' explains Shovana Narayan

Shovana Narayan's performances over the years. (Images by Inni Singh and Beenu Rajput, courtesy Shovana Narayan)

It's 2pm on an October afternoon. Leading Kathak expert Padma Shri Shovana Narayan is on stage at the British Council New Delhi, teaching a masterclass on the classical dance to a bunch of children aged roughly 5-15. Many of them are students of the Arunima Kumar Dance Company (AKDC) and residents of the UK or Poland. They are in the Capital for a kind of cultural immersion, with days of "masterclasses", dance workshops and activities like heritage walks in Delhi, culminating in a performance on October 24.

Infosys Foundation Chairperson Sudha Murty (right) and her daughter Akshata look on as Shovana Narayan teaches a masterclass on Kathak at the British Council New Delhi. (Image: Moneycontrol)

In Shovana Narayan's masterclass, the children are learning the first steps and ideas in Kathak, and are mainly excited to try the "chakkars", or the different types of pirouettes, in Kathak. It's an interactive session, and Shovana Narayan proves an indulgent teacher. As she explains the footwork, she hitches her sari up around her knees so the students - all girls - can see the movements and perhaps appreciate their precision and strength.

She has both questions and answers for the students in the masterclass, explaining how there is instruction in the Natyashastra on the number of ghungroos dancers must wear (hers is a set of 200 ghungroos each, weighing 4.5 kg); the different components of a performance from stage entry and 'bhoomi pranam' to the rhythmic 'nritta' portion and how to finish; how dancers can spend hours exploring and dancing to a single word or phrase; how the dancer's gait is its own important segment in training and performance; how Kathak dancers must build the stamina to narrate as well as dance, without missing a beat; and how they aspire to a transcendence-in-performance where words become meaningless.

"When I raise one arm and bring the other to you, what does it mean?" Shovana Narayan asks the child-dancers. "It means I am receiving something from above, and I am giving it to you." (It's an idea she will expand on again in her interview to Moneycontrol, explaining how the dancer's inward journey is only one part of it. Another important aspect is to take viewers on that "elevating" journey as well.)

Shovana Narayan as a child. (Images courtesy Shovana Narayan)

Born in September 1950, Shovana Narayan started training when she was four years old and over time became one of the most well-regarded practitioners of Kathak. A postgraduate in physics, social sciences and defence strategy, she was already travelling around India and overseas for performances by the time she was in her early 20s. In an interview on the sidelines of the masterclass, she explains how much things have changed from the 1970s to now in terms of classical dance performances, what constitutes an intelligent performance to her mind and the difference between entertainment and a transportive dance performance. Edited excerpts:

What constitutes an intelligent performance according to you? Of course, this could have components that are technical and non-technical, as well as how you interpret the classical texts...

If you're just technical and you're perfect, then you're a craftsperson, you're a skilled technician. But to become an artist, you need something more, something of your own, something which shows your own inner understanding, the depth of what you're doing, of your own immersion.

When you are feeling and immersing yourself (in the form), automatically the way that you do the same thing takes on a different dimension. The technicality of the craft will never go; it's there, that's your tool. But then how you portray different ideas, visuals? In your thought processes, the way they flower into something which is visually concrete, that is what.

When I'm saying an intelligent (performance)... intelligence comes at a different level. (It's) someone who comes with something more—more than just a repetition, more than that which is just a copy, more than just a clone. It's more intuitive. You have to feel it.

And if that person is true to the craft, they understand, they know what (it is), it reaches out and it connects and takes the viewer along, it has a larger impact than just being confined. One is that it's an inward journey, but that inward journey becomes so much that the vibrations (carry) and it resonates all around and it's visible to others and you take others along in that. It is very different from mere entertainment. In entertainment also you're taking everyone along, but it's at a different level. I'm talking at a much deeper, intuitive as well as elevating level.

Shovana Narayan during performances in 1974. (Images courtesy Shovana Narayan)

And is this intelligence sitting in the brain or is it in the body of the dancer or both?

It has to first strike within you. The mind and the heart. Because if something strikes your heart, the mind starts responding and once it starts responding, then the body also responds. It's a whole process, a chemical process of responses.

How do you think about contemporary performances? Is there a marked shift between now versus performances, say, in the 1990s or even earlier than that?

When you say contemporary, every moment is a contemporary moment. While we are talking, the last moment was the past. I presume what you mean as contemporary is something which is more of... something which is affected by the surroundings. Because our thought processes also change.

In terms of decadal changes, is there a shift in what we are seeing in 2025? 

Don't expect us or anyone, also yourself, to be rooted in stone. After all, your body has changed. From a baby to a little child to an adult to what you are today, the body has changed.

Absolutely. In terms of mediums, in the 1980s, we had Doordarshan programming, including on the Indian classical forms. Now, Instagram videos and YouTube tutorials are accessible from almost anywhere. Has that level of access to dance performances and different styles of dance precipitated important changes?

Decadal changes will happen, will happen according to how it is around. I'll tell you my own experience. 1970: I'm young sort of star to watch. And those days if you got a booking on your own with a very famous tabla player, it meant you have arrived. I was now being booked with people like Kishan Maharaj ji accompanying me on the tabla, Pandit Gudai Maharaj, Ustad Latif Ahmed Khan. Now, they were not going to give me rehearsals. So that was the Kathak of the olden days.

Times have changed now. But because that time we (dancers and musicians) were booked separately, it was a kind of jugalbandi, yet at the same time, teamwork without knowing each other; you came to know each other on stage without prior rehearsals; you just met in the greenroom and then you were on stage. That was how it was in those days. Today, you don't see it anymore at all. You didn't have air-conditioning; (dance) festivals were not called festival then but conferences: whole night music and dance conference. Even the terminologies have changed.

And at that time, where were the Kamanis and the Siri Forts? Nowhere. (Kamani Auditorium opened its doors in 1971, and Siri Fort Auditorium more than a decade later, in 1982. Both are air-conditioned. Kamani has a seating capacity of 632, and Siri Fort can seat almost thrice as many people.) You had the big (dance) conferences in pandals, and you had all night (programmes). So if you didn't dance for 2.5-3 hours, you were no dancer!