By Andrew Hamlin
NORTHWEST ASIAN WEEKLY
“Nritya Kavya Chitra,” from Sanskrit, translates as “dance, poems, and art.” And the upcoming free performance from the Dance Tantra group, this Sunday afternoon, Feb. 25, at the Seattle Center Armory packs plenty of all three into roughly 90 minutes.
Dance Tantra will be performing Sunday, Feb. 25 at the Seattle Center Armory. (Photographer: Sandip Debnath)
“Nritya [dance] will be presented by Dance Tantra Academy’s selected students, traditional numbers that they have been practicing for some time,” explained Dance Tantra leader Piyali Biswas De.
“Kavya, or poems, represents the theme ‘Prakritim Paramam,’ finding cosmos in nature,” as inspired by poems and songs written by India’s Rabindranath Tagore, the first non-European winner for the Nobel Prize in Literature.
“Chitra, i.e., art, represents the Pacific Northwest’s beautiful nature, matched with nature-related songs in the dances.”
Piyali Biswas De began life in the small city of Chandannagar in West Bengal, India. “I started learning dance at the tender age of 3. Mainly Indian classical dances, and actively performing all over the state [of West Bengal]. TV was limited during my childhood, but I was inspired by Rabindranath Tagore’s music and dance dramas.”
In India, she focused on the classical dance forms of Bharatanatyam and Rabindra Nritya, but she also learned tap dancing and flamenco, after arriving in America.
“Bharatanatyam is rich with grammars, techniques, and gestures, whereas Rabindra Nritya is a graceful free-flowing lucid style invented by Rabindranath Tagore. It is sourced from various Indian classical and folk dance forms.
“I found lots of similarities in hand gestures, in flamenco and Bharatanatyam. The sense of natural rhythm is evident in every dance form I tried. I felt expressions are different, though, and, for me, dancing with shoes during tap/flamenco was the biggest challenge initially, after dancing barefoot for so long.”
She arrived in the Seattle area in 2006, and founded the Dance Tantra academy 10 years later. About the Seattle area, she remarked, “Artistically, especially in the South Asian art sector, there has been a massive shift. Diversity in population changed a lot, and so did the artistic communities. Indian classical arts definitely entered the mainstream arts.”
As the leader of the troupe, she furnished the original concept and the script for the show, relying heavily, she readily admitted, on the work of her beloved Rabindranath Tagore. But she made sure to thank her co-choreographer, Yamini Varadarajulu Marni, who at one point will dance a duet with De.
“Yamini collaborated with me on the ‘Prakritim Paramam” dance production part. In Indian classical arts, there’s a significant difference between the North Indian and South Indian rhythm systems. Bharatanatyam choreography is usually based on the South Indian rhythm system. A significant portion of music in that dance portion was created in the North Indian rhythm system, due to the composer’s tune demanding it.
“It was a unique creative experience for Yamini and me to fit Bhartanatyam’s steps and gestures into it. That duet is one of the major attractions of the show.”
She also thanked her other collaborators, including singers Ashim Bhaumik, Deepa Banerjee, Gaurav Chanda, and Srikanth Gopalakrishnan; musical directors Riddhi Datta and Swapnendu Kar; and artist/photographer Sandip Dednath.
She also thanked last but not least, the selected Dance Tantra students featured in the production with at least intermediate dancing skills and multiple years of training. Their ages range from 9 years old, all the way up to 16.
“These talented first-generation Indian American kids like her are the future bearer of Indian classical arts in the U.S.”
Dance Tantra presents “Nritya Kavya Chitra,” a free performance, 2 p.m. on Feb. 25 at the Seattle Center Armory Stage, as part of the Artists at the Center performance series. For more information, visit https://www.seattlecenter.com/events/event-calendar/artists-at-the-center-dance-tantra.