Wendy Stegall Teaches Kathak BY NITYA RAWAL WENDY STEGALL starts her dance with an invitation, the hands extending elegantly out, like a maiden offering a platter. Then the hands turn in and rise up to the sun, spinning around each other like butterflies as they twist and turn in a whirlwind. She slaps her hands and does fast, Sufi-like spins, and the feet slap, drumming the ground forcefully. She seems to slip away and the dance turns soft again, eyes adoring, hands pulling gently in, a coy invitation. And then quick, crisp movements that push and pull and seem first welcoming, then distant. The dance builds to a crescendo, and ends on the first beat of the next rhythmic cycle—a sudden stop that is a moment of silence. “Powerful” is how Wendy describes the moment she first saw the Indian dance art called Kathak. It was in 1982, when Abilasha Singh, the daughter of a famous Indian diplomat, performed in Fairfield, Iowa. “She wore a white fitted dress with a skirt that swirled and sparkled with silver when she turned,” Wendy says. “When she wasn’t turning, her amazing footwork sounded like a locomotive, the sound and speed increasing and then gradually fading without missing a single pulse. My eyes filled. I thought, I have to do that.” Always a dancer by nature, but only familiar with a few styles of contemporary dance, Wendy never felt compelled to study formally until that moment. Of all the styles available in the west, jazz was the most tempting. Today, she understands why the jazz appeal. One of her Kathak students, Rise Stokstad, explained that Jack Cole, inspired in the 1930s by the innovative modern dances of Ruth St. Denis and Ted La Shawn (who had incorporated what they knew of Indian dance), studied with an Indian dance teacher in the States. He created many of the moves that made jazz a dance form in its own right. Kathak is also known to be the origin of Flamenco and other gypsy dances. Then what is the origin of Kathak, and what is the story the hands and feet seem to be telling? Westerners who see Indian dance often ask about the significance of the gestures, unlike the audience at a jazz dance performance. Indeed, the word “Kathak” means storyteller. Like Bharata-natyam and other forms of classical Indian dance, it started in the temple. The ancient Kathaks were mainly men who narrated the scriptures using music and mime. They also traveled from the temples to villages to teach people through story and drama. Over time, the dance has gained a fluidity and refinement of movement that is distinct and perhaps less stylized, more natural than some of the other forms. Though it was a line of men responsible for the creation of what is called traditional Kathak today, it has been danced by both men and women for a long time, at least since the Moghul invasions, when Kathak was taken from the temples and used in the courts for entertainment. There is also a “Bollywood” version used in Indian films due to the highly adaptable form of this style as it has evolved. Every Indian dance has two aspects: Nritta is the abstract, purely rhythmic aspect in which there is no intellectual significance to the movements. As in jazz, this aspect is characterized in Kathak by the lines and shapes created in space and the often-syncopated rhythms of the feet corresponding to the tabla. It is pure energy, touching, as all classical dance forms do, on the universal principles of visually beautiful shapes in space.
Kathak is also distinguished by its mood of inner absorption. Wendy explains, “Even if the dancer is not in every way technically perfect, if he or she has that mood of intoxication with the object of one’s desire, the dancer can, with a single glance or wave of the hand, make the audience gasp. The inner mood gives Kathak a coy flavor as well. After all, many of the pieces center on Radha and Krishna—the Hindu god and goddess known for their flirtatious love. Radha and Krishna can be said to symbolize our human longing for union, for completeness, for an all-consuming experience of love.”
This brings us to the second aspect: Abinaya. In the expressionistic dance of abinaya, you will find Radha, Krishna, or any Hindu deity acting out their stories through the human emotions. Here the classical Indian mudras, or hand gestures, found in scriptures and seen in the paintings and sculptures of the deities are used. “But I think it is important for audiences to know, to be informed that they do not need to understand the significance of every gesture,” Wendy says. “The dancers should explain the stories, but at least half of a Kathak performance will be not a sequence of events or symbolic movements, but abstract items of rhythm and joy. “Do these have meaning? Yes, in their effect on the nervous system of the viewer. Kathak’s Nritta caters to our love of seeing certain geometries repeated. Straight lines and ornate circles, sharp motions and sweeping softness, contrast and repetition, all encased, as Indian dance is, in exotic colors and ornamentation. The result is a deeply sensual experience that satisfies the senses, the mind, the heart, and cultivating, if we’re fortunate, in a sense of both expansion and quietness. “So while our enjoyment of these dances is enriched by any knowledge we have of the names of the gods and goddesses, mostly you can just relax and let the rhythm and beauty of Kathak take you where it can.” Wendy also compares the two sides of the Kathak story to the difference in Indian art between paintings of the Divine through representation in human-like forms, and the geometric symbols of yantras and mandalas, in which the different deities are seen in circles, triangles, or specific colors. Beyond intellect but highly scientific, she explains, they are designed to take us beyond mind and meaning, “which is where I want to go when I dance and when I watch dance.” Wendy began learning Kathak in Austin, Texas, in 1989, with weekly lessons. She went to Delhi in 1990 for six months to immerse herself and gain grounding in the basics. Returning to Fairfield, she eventually reconnected with the Indian dance teacher she now studies with and whom she met briefly in Austin: Sandhya DeSai. Sandhya is the senior teacher at a well-known school in Ahmedebad, India, directed by her own dance guru, who is famous for her innovative ballets based on both ancient and modern themes. Sandhya also runs a new school in Elk Grove, Illinois, which opened a year ago.
Finding a way to study Kathak in the U.S., let alone the Midwest, has not always been easy. But now, between studying in India and Chicago, and teaching classes in Iowa, Wendy maintains the continuity of training she’s always longed for, since that first dazzling moment of mysterious movement and train-like footwork of Abilasha Singh, inviting us to find meaning in a dance language not so very foreign after all.
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