Divine calling for this duo
This city-based couple enthralled the audience with their beautiful Kathak performance
By : soumashree sarkar
Update: 2015-07-31 07:35 GMT
One of the most talked about shows at the 13th edition of the Bangalore Fashion Week (BFW) was Gaurang Shah’s. Not simply because of the designs but also because the show incorporate what was easily a departure of ethereal beauty from the norm of ramp walks. It had, to put it very simply, a performance of Kathak by the husband and wife duo of Hari and Chethana.
Born and brought up in Bengaluru, Chethana and Hari are two dancers who have been unfurling the same strain of the same malhar raga for the past twenty years. “Ours was a life of creative expression from very early on. We were initiated to Kathak by Geethanjali Lal, grounded by Bharathi Vittal and Vaibhavi Joshipura and finally sculpted by Kumudini Lakhia. Hari is a graduate from Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography under the able guidance of Guru. Smt.Maya Rao. We were destined to be dancers of Kathak, so in 1996 we formed our own dance school - Noopur. I believe it was nothing less than a divine calling,” says Chethana.
Having given performances all over India, United states of America, Canada, the United Kingdom, Germany, Indonesia, France, Switzerland, Singapore, Thailand, Malaysia, Saudi- Arabia, Sri Lanka and the Middle-east, Hari and Chethana are a couple who find inspiration in everyone and everything - from their trusted milkman to the darkening of the evening clouds. “Ever since childhood, I have been creative and have tried various ways of expressing myself. But singing, painting, writing have all been like apartments which you go to see with your real estate broker until you spot the one house where you are meant to live — which for me was Kathak. Dance has given me the power to be one with the universe. It made it possible for me not to cry when my father passed away, leaving this world,” says Hari.
The recipients of the Natyalakshana Akademi Award and the Rasa Ranjini Award have featured in the Kannada film Parva directed by Sunil Kumar Desai and in the Malayalam film Makara Manya directed by Lenin Rajendran. “We are nothing,” says Hari. He continues, “These aren’t achievements at all. We are half drops each who coalesced to form one drop in the ocean. In Chethana, I found someone who would give me unconditional love and would reflect the ideal that I wanted to build my dance on. She and I try to live our lives through dance. Even a visit to the grocery store is played out in my mind through the steps of a dance ritual.”