Kathak dancer Gauri Sharma Tripathi says embracing one’s age helps better the art form
Kathak exponent Gauri Sharma Tripathi’s most vivid recollections of being associated with the dance form, is through her mother and veteran artiste Padma Sharma. She remembers how her mother would carry a young Gauri in her arms for dance rehearsals with legendary dancer Pandit Lachhu Maharaj at CP Tank in Mumbai. “The sound of her ghungroos and this particular ittar fragrance called khus, which she wore during those sessions, became the starting point of my relationship with dance,” recalls Tripathi.
At Junoon’s upcoming Mumbai Local event, Gauri Sharma Tripathi will look back at her own life journey as a dancer
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While this is one of the most significant chapters of her life, Mumbai-based Tripathi, who has lived in the UK for more than 20 years, and is among the few torchbearers of the classical dance form, will share stories of her evolution as a kathak dancer at Junoon’s upcoming Mumbai Local event, The Poetics of the Body.
In this session, Tripathi will look back at her own life journey, to speak about how the physicality of her art evolved as she went on to perform along with different people, in culturally diverse spaces. “Dance is a very physical art form,” says Tripathi. “But, this physicality is not just about the body. It is a combination of the energy driven and executed through the body,” adds the danseuse, who is an artiste in residence at the South Bank Centre, London.
“As a dancer, you are constantly having a dialogue with the many instruments of the body. Because the body is a changing landscape, you realise that it’s playing games with you. But it’s this game, which I find exciting,” she says.
According to Tripathi, one of the most important issues that a dancer has to contend with is the ageing of the body. “Very often, we are not able to understand the physical limits of age. But, as artistes we have to tackle with it all the time. The moment we understand and embrace it, we become more intuitive,” Tripathi adds.
Her mother, she says, is a shining example of how a dancer can be graceful even at 76. “Dance is not only about footwork or performance, it is also about storytelling. The sincerity of a dancer is in accepting the changes within the body, and working with that in a different way. I see it with my mother, who is my guru. She just glides through her repertoire. That’s the beauty of classical Indian dance — it is like wine that grows and matures with age,” she says.
Where: MCubed Library, Princess building, Bandra
When: August 6, 5 PM
Call: 26411497
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