In socio-political parlance, Sati is a designation for the ‘virtuous’ widow, whose sole duty is self-sacrifice. But the contemplations of renowned Kathak artiste, Shila Mehta, tell us a different story. Through the production, Women Speak, the danseuse delves into Indian literary traditions from the sixth century B.C. and extracts the figure of Mahasati to flip a misconstrued perspective. Instead, she reveals a powerful woman embodying devotion, courage and an indomitable spirit.

To be presented in January 2024 at the NCPA’s Lok Gatha festival, this harmonious blend of Kathak and folk art will be staged on a platform created exclusively to highlight folk cultures of India that have sustained centuries of upheavals, much like the resilient image of the Mahasati. The production is also illustrative of the stunning results of global collaborative endeavours between the Kathak exponent and her senior disciple Maya Sapera, coupled with the contributions of Belgium-based dramaturges Lisi Estaras and Koen Augustijnen.

An exemplary choreographer and danseuse, Sapera ferried Rajasthani folk styles into Belgium and founded the Maya Sapera Dance Company nearly two decades ago to teach, expound and propagate Indian musical and dance traditions. Along with Women Speak, she will bring to Lok Gatha, Belgian artistes performing two folk styles, Kalbelia and Terataali.

Learning Folk

Sapera learnt Kalbelia in the true spirit of imbibing folk art “by watching and trying”. Today, cultural traditions can be disseminated and absorbed around the world quite easily, but when she studied Kalbelia over 20 years ago, it was by playing a single VHS tape over and over again in Ghent and travelling to Jodhpur to dance with Kalbelia singer and dancer, Asha Sapera and the Khatu family of practising artistes.

The folk dance is integral to the culture of the snake-charming Kalbelia tribe, whose elegant swaying motions resemble the serpents they worship. Women artistes swing to the pungi and the rhythmic beats of dafli to narrate folklore and mythological stories even as the tribe as a whole reconfigures its shifting social roles in Rajasthan’s rural economies.

“Kalbelia is living heritage,” Sapera opines, “So, you really can develop your own style,” and in keeping with the essence of the folk idiom, her practice is imbued with her distinct interpretations of a tradition epitomising “inner power, femininity and grounding”. Sapera has worked closely with Rajasthani Kalbelia performers to popularise this form globally. According to her, preserving folk cultures is possible only by keeping them alive and enabling them to evolve. “Nowadays, I see influences from oriental dance in Kalbelia,” she notes, which can potentially enhance the art’s sublimity as long as its essence is retained.

Through her dance productions, Sapera has achieved this global cultural confluence while foregrounding the core of the folk form. With Terataali too, the artiste will present a vibrant showcase of dancers moving to the notes of the ektara, their bodies adorned with 13 manjiras (cymbals) producing lilting rhythms as they delicately balance tall columns of earthen pots atop their heads.

Imparting Culture

A cultural knowledge transfer from Rajasthan’s dunes to a dance studio in Ghent is hardly without challenges. Indian dance, Sapera explains, is still often viewed as an exotic practice and it is only when the “tangible benefits” of dedicated learning become apparent that its perception moves beyond oriental allure. But for Sapera, learning Kathak or Kalbelia is a nourishing, transformative journey for the soul. She explains, “In a society often dominated by rational thinking, the emotional and spiritual dimensions of Indian dance offer a much-needed counterbalance.”

Yet, what makes knowledge transfer a complicated process is a tendency to locate a sense of religiosity, particularly in imparting classical dance. “Our hero of dance is Krishna, and the Lord of dance is Shiva,” Mehta points out. Indian classical art forms are multilayered and multi-textured. So, at their core, classical traditions are symbolic and peeling through those depths reveals a philosophical and intellectual dimension that transcends the “direct implications of the story”.

Discovering this consciousness of invoking the supreme enables a successful cross-border cultural exchange so that teaching Belgian dancers the teentaal is first about connecting them to the intellectualism of art and only then exploring the science of the taal cycle.

Spiritual Connect 

With a career spanning over 35 years, Mehta has often witnessed this spiritual link unfurl while teaching Kathak at several centres, including her Mumbai-based Nupur Zankar Academy and Sapera’s dance company in Ghent.

Before she first narrated the story of Mahasati Chandanbala to her Belgian students, Mehta had hesitated. Jain philosophy extols the virtues of the 16 Mahasatis, of which Chandanbala was one. In the sixth century B.C., during the time of Vardhamana Mahavira, one of the supreme preachers of Jainism, the king and queen of Champapuri had a daughter named Vasumati. Her transformation from Princess Vasumati to Chandanbala, arguably the first nun in the history of Jainism, inspired Mehta because her life story exemplified the principles of Jainism and portrayed that if we face the challenges and miseries of life with a positive attitude, we can overcome them and elevate ourselves. Mehta wondered how far this story would resonate with Western artistes, but she recalls that after she finished the narration, they were overwhelmed.

For the Belgian artistes, bringing the story of Chandanbala to the stage is then about recognising what the woman from that age and part of the world has to say, and asking the question, ‘Does that woman also exist here?’ First staged in 2016, Mehta elaborates that during its production, Chandanbala’s story quickly morphed into a tale of universal womanhood. Discovering uniformity of emotion, this was a quest to untangle layers of suffering—of desire, anger, greed—and to reach purity inherent to the human soul. This spiritual undertaking involved “un-layering” such proclivities to make a woman “stronger and stronger”, just like Chandanbala, who turned her challenges into her strengths. So, even as Mahasati remained the underlying spiritual inspiration, Mehta and Sapera integrated her philosophical journey with Kathak, folk music and Western sensibilities infused by talented dramaturges to birth Women Speak as a story transcending territorial boundaries.

Undoubtedly, there were the more tangible challenges involved, Mehta notes, one being the “navkar mantra” or an incantation in Prakrit sung in the production. This technical component involved teaching Belgian artistes how to sing the mantra in an ancient Indian language.

Introducing elements of Kathak into folk art was another creative exercise. However, the malleability of Kathak made it exceedingly compatible with folk sounds, live music and even long silences. Mehta, whose learnings are shaped by legendary gurus like Birju Maharaj and Suresh Talwalkar, notes that Kathak is a sophisticated dance style, its natural form evident in its poised posture. It is also the only classical style in which the taal is performed, creating an articulate language of dance. This uniform rhythm allows several sensibilities to find their place in Kathak and makes it a style that can be entwined with other dances to tell a compelling story. Women Speak has been lauded by artistes and critics, including the late dance historian and scholar Sunil Kothari who said, “This lavish production has narrative which smoothly flows and keeps audience engaged from the beginning till the end.”

Evidently, with Women Speak, Terataali and Kalbelia set to be showcased at Lok Gatha, what this guru-shishya duo will bring to Indian audiences is a striking collaboration among cultures, delivering globalised interpretations of ancient Indian literature and dance traditions.