Article:
All photos courtesy of Hum Sub.
Hum Sub opened a series of quarter-century celebrations with a rich Kathak dance performance.
By Elizabeth Brignac
Hum Sub, a Triangle organization dedicated to sharing the social and cultural traditions of India with the residents of North Carolina, kicked off a celebration of its 25th year with Invoking the River, a Kathak dance with live music, on February 1. Hum Sub will offer several more celebrations of its quarter century over the course of 2025. I was privileged to attend the event, and after some discussion with a representative at Hum Sub, we agreed that while I am not at all an expert on this subject, my perspective is fresh. So with Hum Sub’s encouragement, here is my account of the performance.
After speeches by Hum Sub President Sachin Joshi, Congresswoman Deborah Ross, and other Hum Sub leaders and former presidents, Invoking the River choreographer and artistic director Charlotte Moraga offered context for the performance. Moraga, who traveled the world as a solo Kathak dancer for many years, directs the Chitresh Das Youth Company, the youth dance company of world-renowned Kathak dance institute Chitresh Das, which is based in San Francisco.
Kathak is one of the main traditions of classical dance from the Indian subcontinent. Known as a storytelling dance form, it is the only classical Indian dance tradition not closely tied to any one religion. This particular performance focused its story on several Indian rivers: the Alaknanda, the Ganga, the Kaveri and the Godavari. Dancers representing different rivers told their stories through their performances, which were interspersed with poetry and musical interludes. In the final dance, the performers came together in a celebration of rivers running together, bringing life where they flow. An important theme in the dance was the powerful, life-giving and destructive power of water, which brings people together, both with the natural world and with one another, across centuries.
The performance began with an empty stage, the only lights focused on pianist Ustav Lal in one corner and on tabla player Sudhakar Vaidyanathan in another. Lal, whose adaptation of traditional Indian music to the piano has garnered him international recognition, composed all the music for Invoking the River. Vaidyanathan has played the tabla (traditional paired Indian hand drums) since he was a child and is building a reputation across the nation for his work. The music both supported the dancing and became a focal point itself. At times, the piano and tabla engaged in musical conversations between dances.
Each segment of the performance began with a screen depicting abstract art and a poem focused on a particular river. Alka Raghuram created both the art and the poetry. Silhouettes and shadows of female figures appeared and disappeared on the screen as a narrator read poems from the perspectives of the rivers, invoking stories and symbols from Indian legend.
The dancing began with four dancers entering from the back of the theater wearing flared dresses sometimes called Anarkali dresses in rich shades of blue, gold, and orange. They opened their performance with a group dance and then moved into solo performances, each focused on one river’s story. The dancers told their stories powerfully through their facial expressions as well as their movements. They wore metal ghungroo bells around their ankles, which drew attention to their intricate footwork and became important musical elements as well. For example, when the dancer representing the trapped river beat on the walls of her enclosure, she wore bells around her wrists as well as her ankles. The jarring sound of the bells added to the desperation she invoked.
In the final dance, the rivers converged. The dancers, now all dressed in blues and greens, flew in turns across the stage with lengths of bright blue, faintly glistening fabric that they released to form a flowing, blue river across the stage. The dancers whirled around it holding fluttering panels of gauzy, darker blue cloth. The dance celebrated the power and beauty of the rivers coming together and flowing through the world.
The overall performance combined polish and precision down to the last detail with a freeform, creative energy appropriate to a dance celebrating rivers. The dancers alternated between joy and grief; fear and power so effectively that I found myself thinking of them as actors as often as I thought of them as dancers. I appreciated the grace, precision and acting ability each dancer brought to her performance.
Overall, this performance was a great opportunity to experience a richly danced and choreographed performance—one that celebrated the power of femininity as it celebrated the natural world. It was also an exceptionally beautiful event, in terms of its every element: music, dance, costumes, and props. Invoking the River was a wonderful way to kick off a year of celebrating Hum Sub’s quarter century of bringing rich elements of South Asian culture to the Triangle.