By Mabel Pais

The World Music Institute in collaboration with Asia Society presents its annual 13th edition of ‘Dancing the Gods’ Festival featuring leading performers of Indian Dance. Each night begins with a slide presentation by festival curator and acclaimed dance storyteller, Rajika Puri.

PROGRAM

Night One: Dancing the Gods

Kasi Aysola and Archana Raja (Kuchipudi with live music)

Friday, May 10, 2024

Doors: 7 PM | Lec Dem by Curator Rajika Puri: 7:15 PM

Performance:  8 PM

Asia Society – 725 Park Avenue, Manhattan

Night Two: Dancing the Gods

Rama Vaidyanathan (solo Bharatanatyam with live music)

Sunday, May 12, 2024

Doors: 7 PM | Lec Dem by Curator Rajika Puri: 7:15 PM

Performance:  8 PM

Asia Society – 725 Park Avenue, Manhattan

Watch Kasi & Archana dance – youtu.be/LDzgEcHzrk0

Learn more about Kasi Aysola at prakritidance.com and Archana Raja at archanaraja.com

Watch Rama dance – youtu.be/g3v7EkmEKt4

Learn more about Rama Vaidyanathan at ramavaidyanathan.com

TICKETS

For tickets to see Kasi and Archana on May 10, visit asevents.eventive.org/schedule/65d4fc632139390097fcfa05

For tickets to see Rama on May 12, visit

asevents.eventive.org/schedule/65d4fae436e55f006eb9a964

RAJIKA PURI is an internationally acclaimed exponent of two forms of Indian classical dance – Bharata Natyam and Odissi – which she has performed in solo recitals all over Europe, the United States, Latin America, and India. Career highlights include a command performance for the President of Mexico. Learn more at rajikapuri.com

INTERVIEW WITH RAJIKA PURI

 

Rajika Puri, festival curator and acclaimed dance storyteller, spoke to Mabel Pais.

TIP: You have an inspiring resume in theatre, dance, and film. Are you still active in each of these areas?

RAJIKA PURI (RP): Mira (Nair) got me into ‘Mississippi Masala’ (1991) and ‘Longtime Companion’ (1989 – directed by Norman René) and things like that. But film is not really my thing…I did however fly there and then get up really early to go to the set at 6 o’clock the next morning and do something small. Roshan Seth is a friend of mine. I had gone because Roshan Seth was in the film (‘Mississippi Masala’) and actually I was supposed to be on holiday in New Mexico. I had a scene with Sir Ben Kingsley in ‘Learning to Drive’ (as Darwan’s sister Rasbir) and things like that. But it was fun (2014 – director Isabel Coixet).

Nowadays, I’m doing even less theatre because the auditions and all stopped during the pandemic and then my agent left or retired and I decided not to get another one. Then I decided to get a place in Portugal to spend a lot of time there and winters in India.

TIP: Where were you born? How did you get started in dance?

RP: I was born in East Africa.

Oh! I think as a little child I would always listen to music. My father was in Burma during the war (Second World War) and my mother went home for my birth, and I have photographs of me standing by a His Master’s Voice (HMV) turntable records that had that big megaphone, and there’s a picture of me just standing next to it listening to music and trying to move myself to it, Apparently, my mother always said “you know, that from the moment you could walk, you responded to dance.”. To me, dance is really a response to music. It’s not like jumping around like an idiot. It really is a response that comes in my body when I hear music that makes me want to move.

TIP: At what age did you start performing?

RP: I think my first dance class was at the age of eight. My mother knew that a person’s brain is not really beginning to be formed and set until the age of eight. So she didn’t want to have me do anything before that age except to jump around to music, or go to dance sessions in kindergarten. But at the age of eight, she found me a guru, and I started. (Of course, in those days it was only Bharatanatyam you could learn). A few Bharatanatyam gurus had come to Delhi, and I remember having classes in the central hall of my aunt’s big house (because my Bengali father who was in the army had been posted to a non-family station  and we were in Dehradun and we had moved to a very small place that they gave to army wives whose husbands were at the frontier, at non-family stations. So in this big hall of Motilal Nehru Marg, I used to get Bharatanatyam lessons.

Then, my mother got fed up of being an army widow (a grass widow is what I mean) of never seeing her husband who was up in the Front (battle front), so she decided to go to London, and she took my younger 2-year-old brother and myself, and we went off to England. There, she put me into ballet for a little while. But my feet were not ballet feet. I have flat feet as a Bharatanatyam dancer, but there were no Bharatanatyam teachers in London in 1958!

Soon, she even got me into a couple of talent shows and I danced on television and was called back three times, you know. The newspaper used Malini (from Manimalini Parivrajika which is my real name, Rajika is the end of it. There’s no such a name as Rajika in India, though it is a Sri Lankan name, I later discovered.

The name Rajika was given to me by Madame Sokhey, Menaka Sokhey. She was one of the first dancers who went abroad at the same time as Uday Shankar. She told my mother when my parents got married in her house, “If you have a daughter, give her the name Rajika,” which was one of her favorite roles in her ballet ‘Malavika Agnihotram’. A Parivrajika is a wandering Buddhist nun. I remember my masi (mother’s sister) said, “No, no, that name means she’ll never get married.” So I later thought that part of my name has come too since I have traveled a lot during my life, from New Zealand to Peru. So, she said, “Call her also ‘Monimalini’ to ensure she is not poor! So they added Monimalini to the beginning of my name. But my father used to just call me ’Rajika’. And then I found out that it is a Sri Lankan name.

TIP: Why the title ‘Dancing the Gods?’

RP: Well. Have you thought about it? We don’t dance for the Gods, we don’t dance to the gods, we become the gods on stage. When I dance Shiva, I become Shiva. I’m representing Shiva. We dance for the people; we dance the gods. We dance as Shiva to spread, to give the non-literate people and others in the villages and so on to bring the scriptures to life. And to bring the scriptures to life, we danced and the characters were gods.

(Mabel Pais writes on The Arts and Entertainment, Education, Social Issues, Cuisine, Spirituality, Health & Wellness, and Business)