KATHAK
- A CLASSICAL DANCE
OF NORTHERN INDIA
by David Courtney, Ph.D.
Kathak is the major classical dance form
of northern India. The word kathak means "to tell
a story". It is derived from the dance dramas of
ancient India. When the patronage shifted from the temples
to the royal court, there was a change in the overall
emphasis. The emphasis shifted from the telling of religious
stories to one of entertainment. Today the story-telling
aspect has been downgraded and the dance is primarily
an abstract exploration of rhythm and movement.
Kathak
was primarily associated with an institution known as
the tawaif. This is a much misunderstood institution
of female entertainers, very much like the geisha tradition
of Japan. It was a profession which demanded the highest
standards of training, intelligence, and most important,
civility. It is said that it was common for royalty
to send their children to the tawaifs for instruction
in etiquette. Unfortunately when the British consolidated
their hold over India during the Victorian era this
great institution was branded as mere prostitution and
was outlawed. This set the artform of kathak into a
downward spiral that was not reversed until Independence
when there was a reawakening in interest in traditional
Indian artforms.
There
are three main gharanas, or schools of kathak. These
schools are named according to the geographical area
in which they developed. These are the Jaipur, Lucknow,
and the Benares gharanas. Each has a slight difference
in interpretation and repertoire.
THE
GHARANA
by David Courtney, Ph.D.
The
concept of gharana is peculiar to North Indian music
today. The word "Gharana" literally means
"house" and it implies the house of the teacher.
It is linked to the very ancient concept of the Guru-Shishya-Parampara
(linage of teacher /disciple) but with some interesting
modern twists.
The names of the gharanas are almost always derived
from a geographical location. This is usually the city,
district or state that the founder lived in. Two examples
are the Gwalior Gharana (vocal) or the Farukhabad Gharana
(tabla).
The
gharana system as we think of it today is not really
very old. Most of the gharanas today are not more than
100-300 years old. The modern gharanas are generally
traceable to the period when the Mogul empire collapsed.
Gharanas
are found throughout the North in every field of dance,
vocal and instrumental music. They tend to be distinct
among themselves. That is to say that you generally
do not find tabla players saying that they are from
a vocal gharana or a vocalist claiming to come from
a kathak gharana. This is reasonable. One would not
expect an accountant to use his golf skills as and endorsement
of his abilities as an accountant.
In the professional sense a gharana has some of the
characteristics of a guild. It was always understood
that tracing ones linage to a major gharana was a prerequisite
for obtaining a position in the royal courts. The gharanas
were entrusted with the duty of maintaining a certain
standard of musicianship.
In
the artistic sense the gharana is somewhat comparable
to a "style" or "school". Over the
years poor transportation and communication caused the
various gharanas to adopt their own particular approach
to presentation, technique and repertoire.
In
the past few decades the gharana system has had a negative
impact on the standard of musicianship. Improvements
in communications have made it a professional imperative
for musicians to have as broad of a background as possible.
The secretive nature of the gharana system coupled with
the fact that gharanas tended to specialize in only
one technique or approach is inconsistent with modern
pedagogic and proffesional requirements. Today, musicians
who proclaim loudest that they are "such-and-such"
gharana often have the least rounded background. It
is for this reason that many of the aspects of this
system have been abandoned in modern music colleges
in India.
For
more information go to:
http://chandrakantha.com/articles/indian_music/kathak.html
