When she heard about Samāgata, Monkeyhouse Co-Artistic Director and current aMaSSiT mentor, karen Krolak, thought this would be a great opportunity to introduce people to three outstanding classical Indian soloists that she has met through producing NACHMO Boston: Soumya Rajaram (Bharatanatyam), Sapna Govindan (Mohiniyattam), and Priya Bangal (Odissi).
Samāgata, is an evening of classical Indian dance solos by three artists in – Mohiniyattam, Bharatanatyam and Odissi. It will be presented at Andover Town House (Old Town Hall) at 20 Main St, Andover, MA on Saturday, June 11 2022 at 7:30 pm. The venue is accessible for people who use mobility devices. Tickets are free. Pre-register here to reserve seating.
karen decided to interview each one of the artists for a different local dance blog. There is already a post with Sapna on Monkeyhouse’s C2C blog and be on the lookout for a conversation with Soumya on the CreativeGround blog.
karen Krolak: How long have you been doing things at the Dance Complex? What sorts of programs/classes there have been meaningful/helpful to you?
Priya Bangal: Dance Complex has been an important part of my life as a dancer since I moved to Boston in early 2011. It was the only reliable rehearsal space that was available for me to rent for the longest time. I have not taken any classes, but I have rented studio space for rehearsal countless times, attended several performances, participated in festivals such as Fest of Us and Ten Tiny Dances, come to watch friends dance at these festivals, come to watch friends rehearse in the studios, and also helped friends produce a show for the Dance Complex Performance Series. In 2018, I co-founded a community called Samvād, which is a forum for Indian classical dancers and musicians to meet and interact in an informal setting. We have had numerous Samvād meetings at the Dance Complex, which has always been warm and welcoming to us. The fact that it is centrally located on the Red line in the middle of a vibrant cultural and business district, is just a bonus. For me, Dance Complex is where dance lives and I can keep going back there, whether I need motivation, inspiration, community, rehearsal space or all of the above. I could not be more thankful.
KK: I love the idea of Samvād. What was your motivation for forming Samvād and how can other classical Indian dancers join if they are interested?
PB: Samvād is a space for classical Indian dancers and musicians of diverse styles to converse, evaluate, and reflect as a creative community, to have critical discussions on aesthetic values and artistic goals and to share in each others’ creative process.
Way back in 2018, I was chatting with dancer Mesma Belsaré, who was then based in Boston, about how difficult and isolating it has been to forge our own path forward as dancers after migrating to the United States – being culturally displaced, removed from the ethos of our dance and lacking an ecosystem to grow and thrive in. Mesma and I started Samvād to provide ourselves and others what we didn’t initially have – a group of empathetic peers, a space for shared artistic dialogue and a creative community to be a part of. We deliberately stayed away from any model that was geared towards performance or designing a stage production. It is immensely gratifying to us that Samvād has since grown and attracted members with varied interests and goals – ranging from dance history and scholarship to performance, music practice, dance practice, choreography and even arts administration. When the pandemic forced us to move online, we opened our dialogue to the larger community through a series of debates called Tête-à-tête on YouTube Live, where we invited guest speakers to address difficult questions that fester in the arts community, but remain unaddressed in the polite environment of the performance world. Post-pandemic, our meetups have been a hybrid of in-person (in Boston/Cambridge) and virtual, as we have members in different parts of the US and also in other countries. It is our hope that the Samvād community will continue to thrive and foster friendships. We welcome those who wish to join this community to follow us on Facebook at facebook.com/samvadboston or write to us at [email protected].
KK: In 2019 you received a Traditional Arts Apprenticeship from the Mass Cultural Council and then had to adapt that process during COVID. As a solo performer how was that process for you?
PB: Even though the Apprenticeship was officially over before COVID hit, the COVID isolation months were, in many ways, an extension of the apprenticeship for me and deeply transformational for my Odissi training. In the absence of live performances, I doubled down on training and practice, continued to work with my mentor Shipra Mehrotra remotely, and discovered that dance brought much needed structure and purpose to my stay-at-home isolation days. I found myself reaping the benefits of the work that I had put into the apprenticeship. I was able to trust my technique and dance with joy and abandon, let myself respond to music and bring more musicality in my work. This is a very important aspect of the Odissi style and I was glad to be able to experience it. I was reluctant to jump into the virtual performance space before putting thought towards what it meant to me from an artistic standpoint, but I video documented some of this work in February 2021, as a personal artistic milestone. Live performances started back again for me in late summer and fall of 2021. While the COVID years have been challenging for all of us in many ways, I am grateful to have been able to continue my artistic practice during this time.
KK: You are currently developing Samāgata with Soumya Rajaram and Sapna Govindan. The Dance Complex seeks to support people as they take their next deep step in dance. How is Samāgata an important step in your dance journey?
PB: Samāgata is in many ways, the natural outcome of COVID isolation for the three of us. After things slowly started to open back up, we were like most others, starved for company of fellow dancers, and struggling with motivation and inspiration. Casual get-togethers in each others’ homes for sharing dance and chit-chatting led to the desire to present something together to a live audience. In the theory of Indian aesthetics, a live audience is actually very important and is considered the co-creator of a shared experience of a performing art. So we wanted it to be a coming together of the artist and the audience, besides the three of us coming together as dancers. Plus, dance is also a coming together of many elements – music, poetry, sculpture, literature, folklore, legend and so on. Samāgata, which in Sanskrit means to come together, felt like the most apt title. While we are presenting traditional dances carefully curated for a varied and tightly packed offering, it was also our goal to present these dances in their characteristic, essential, undiluted form. We are grateful to the Andover Community and to NEFA for making it possible.
For me, personally, it is an important step forward in my journey as a solo performer, which was delayed by the pandemic. It is an opportunity to bring to fruition learnings from the apprenticeship as well as the work I did quietly during the COVID isolation months. Most mainstream festival slots in Boston/Cambridge are limited to 5-10 minutes, which is often too short for classical Indian dance to build and achieve the intended impact. Samāgata is an effort to allow ourselves to luxuriate in the depth of the choreographic masterpieces we have chosen to dance, and have the audience share in this delight. And I couldn’t have hoped for better co-artists for this project. Both Sapna and Soumya are gifted dancers with an admirable work ethic, and a constant and passionate drive to learn and grow as artists. I am fortunate to have the opportunity to work with them on this show.
KK: You mention the challenge of presenting classical Indian dance in the time limits of local festivals. What would be an ideal amount of time for your work and the work of other classical Indian dancers within a shared choreographer’s concert?
PB: A work with substantial choreographic depth can typically range from 12-20 minutes. There are works that are longer, but this is the typical range. Shorter time slots are better suited for student recitals.
KK: I know that there are conversations within our community about how to support non-Western dance forms better. One of the other issues that I have noticed is that many local classical Indian dancers perform works choreographed by people who often live outside of the US. With so much of our local funding centered around the choreographer, this presents a problematic barrier. Are there other obstacles that you face that presenters and funders should understand?
PB: Thank you for asking this question, karen. First, presenters that host touring dancers or present evening-length works from the Indian Classical background are few to none in the Boston area. This is an obstacle not just for locally-based dancers, but in bringing quality dance work to Boston from outside. This is needed to create a vibrant cultural environment, cultivate an audience and raise the bar for locally-based work. There also seems to be a lack of a relationship between funding organizations and the artist community, which could lead to more expert representation on panels and selection committees. The artist community also needs to take their share of the responsibility for building such relationships and it is my hope that groups like Samvād can assist with that. Lack of a cultivated audience and little to no interest from mainstream media also means lack of press or press reviews and such other resources that help establish oneself as a career artist. I sincerely hope that we can work together to change this scenario one day at a time. About the choreography issue that you observed: Learning and performing traditional choreography is an essential part of being a classical Indian dancer. These are usually choreographies of maestros in the respective traditions, many of whom may no longer even be alive. It is, in some ways, similar to Ballet or Western Classical Music, where performing a Symphony by a 19th Century musician from Europe in a concert is a common occurrence. Performing these choreographies is about more than just working with a choreographer. It is also, very importantly, about upholding the aesthetic legacy of a tradition and allowing yourself to be steeped in it. There are mid-career or late-career artists in the US who choreograph original works, but their legacy is recent, scattered, and not as organized as those in India. This is why we see more works choreographed by “people who live outside the US”, as you observed, and it is a barrier when seeking funding opportunities, certainly.
KK: Finally, you mentioned the need to cultivate an audience. Is this your goal behind hosting a pre-performance interactive session in Andover before Samāgata?
PB: Yes, certainly. There is often interest from uninitiated audiences to know more about the forms and content so they can better experience the performance. In the absence of other resources, this responsibility often falls on the artists themselves. But including educational materials, background, theory, or dance history in a performance often takes away from the experience of being part of an artistic presentation. So this is an effort to engage with interested audiences to talk, demonstrate, answer questions and share what we know – we are not scholars or academics, but we are dancers deeply engaged in our practice and we are thrilled that we have an audience who is interested enough to want to know more! We are grateful to the Andover Center for History and Culture for opening their doors to us to host this session. It will be on June 2 at 7:00 pm and admission is free, though RSVP is requested as seating is limited. Those interested may visit andoverhistoryandculture.org for registration.
Photo Credit: Olivia Moon Photography @halfasianlens
