KATHAK GURU

‘I want to take Kathak around the globe’

 

Jan. 16th, 2006 by Shabnam Bhowmick

 Sushmita Banerjee is an artist who gave a whole new dimension to Kathak. She created a distinctive mode in her Ekahari Shaili of Kathak. The international Kathak exponent had known dance before she had known anything else in the world. She was four when she started dancing. For Sushmita, Kathak is much beyond a dance form.

 It is her spiritual getaway. Talking to The Hitavada while she was in Nagpur to perform at Kalidas festival she spoke on her conviction about Kathak and her endeavour to popularise the art. Sushmita Banerjee had been a student of versatile guru Pandit Ramnarayan Mishra. Presently, she is under the tutelage of Pandit Birju Maharaj. Her style of Kathak is a delicate balance of bhava and saundarya, nazakat and khoobsurati, an unmistakable Lucknow Gharana feature that carries prominent marks of Pandit Sambhu Maharaj’s Kathak. She also runs a Kathak school in Switzerland. “My only mission is to take Kathak around the globe”, she says. Her extensive research into reviving old compositions of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah and other works is her strategy to enrich Kathak in her own humble way. Why Wajid Ali Shah? “I feel an indescribable closeness towards him. May be because he lived in Metiaburuj, Kolkata for so long and also he added so much to the gat-nikas,” she says, adding that the uniqueness of poetry of the Nawab of Oudh was the prime reason. Sushmita has also choreographed Pratiksha, a piece on the unsung ladies of the Indian mythologies. Her interpretation of Sita in Pratiksha fetched her grant from the Indian Government. The artist par excellence is also an excellent golf player and also carries out exchange programmes for Kathak learners. Chakravyuh another unique creation by Sushmita, is done in Katha style and is very close to her heart. “It is just not Abhimanyu’s ordeal, it represents tribulation of every human soul that gets into worldly mess but does not know the way out to touch the Lord, the Supreme power ”, she elucidates. Infusing spiritual element in every performance is her identity, and is essentially ‘Susmitaish’! She does not believe in doing anything mechanically. Performing Kathak blankly, or just reproducing what she had been taught by her legendary Gurus is not what she wants to do. “I experiment a lot, but the parameter always remains inside framework of Kathak,” she says. Presently Sushmita is working in a project to prepare a DVD on Kathak. But that also, she does in her unique style. “I have consulted masters in the field and am shooting in places where Kathak flourished. I don’t want to make a DVD just for the sake of it. I want to prepare it a way like something cerebral, with an extra edge. It will be my mouthpiece about Kathak. It will be informative for learners in the eliminatory stage and will also present handy reference to researchers in the field”, she says. Knowing the intensity of her confidence, one can expect a masterpiece from her soon.