CLASSICAL INDIAN DANCE COMES TO CASA DEL PRADO

A king’s ransom in ancient treasures and contemporary crafts from the far corners of India has made its way across this country over the last year. Even exhibitions showcasing India’s scientific and industrial achievements are touring the United States in this unprecedented cultural celebration.

The unique potpourri of obscure exotica and modern technological innovation, collected under the broad umbrella of the Festival of India, was designed to introduce Americans to the diversity of cultural riches India has amassed over the centuries and to help bridge the cultural gap between the two countries.

Only a small sampling of these Indian art forms and technological exhibits have passed through San Diego. A performance of the Kuchipudi classical dance drama at 7:30 tonight in the Casa del Prado Theater in Balboa Park is part of that sampling.

This performance of the Kuchipudi, rarely seen anywhere in the Western World, will offer a brief introduction to the vividly theatrical art form that takes its name from a small village in Southern India.

Sponsored by the Center for World Music, an organization dedicated to preserving and presenting music and dance from all over the world, in conjunction with the American Institute of Indian Studies, the concert of story and dance will be performed by Vedantam Satyanarayana Sharma, a leading exponent of Kuchipudi. The San Diego-based Center for World Music managed to snare Sharma and his nine-member troupe of dancers and musicians (one of only five groups chosen to perform in the United States under a Ford Foundation grant) for their only West Coast appearance.

Martha Ashton, tour manager for the group and production coordinator for the Festival of India, is excited about bringing the complexity of Indian culture to American audiences. But she had another purpose in organizing this ambitious tour.

“I think what I hoped would happen was (that people would get) a more positive opinion of India,” Ashton said. “The news in the papers and on TV is so negative--’It’s overcrowded. It’s dirty. The people are starving.’ Now people are seeing that India really has something beautiful.

“The culture has thrived for thousands of years. There’s a written treatise on dance written over a thousand years ago, and the practice of dance goes back much farther. (Americans) were never aware how much depth there is to the culture before.”

The dance drama on tap for San Diego dates back to the 15th Century, when its creator, Siddendra Yogi, combined elements of existing theater and dance forms into his dance drama, “Bhama Kalapam,” and trained a group of Brahman men to perform both male and female roles.

“People associate Indian dance with women,” Ashton said, “but that’s not really true. A lot of the Indian dancers are male, although women still do most of the temple dances.”

What you won’t see very often--not even in India--are men dancing female roles.

“Vedantam Satyanarayana (Sharma) is part of a vanishing breed,” acknowledged Lance Nelson, a specialist in the religious studies department at the University of San Diego. “Since the dance form was adapted for the stage (in the 1950s), they’re using women to play female roles. You just don’t see too many men doing them.”

“There are only two or three all-male ensembles in Kuchipudi,” Ashton said. “Now women are being trained to dance in this style, for the first time in its history.”

Dance master and choreographer Vempeti Chinna Satyam (nattuvanar, or conductor, in this ensemble) is one of the artists responsible for converting this traditional temple festival dance--which spanned almost 12 hours in its original form--to a contemporary theatrical expression. He and Sharma designed a distillation of the obscure dance that still takes between two and four hours to perform.

Sharma will take on the guise of a woman for his characterization of Satyabhama (one of the wives of Lord Krishna).

“I guess you could say he’ll be dancing in drag,” Ashton said, laughing, “and the transformation is pretty fantastic. If you saw him on the street, you’d say: ‘How can he ever play a woman?’ But he’s strictly beguiling.”

She said “Bhama Kalapam” is a mythological dance, “and we’ll be doing a scene between Satyabhama and her confidante. She’s quite proud, and he (Krishna) is trying to teach her a lesson. The whole scene (describes) her plan to get back at him. She was pretty wily herself.”

To make the dance and gestural language more accessible to American audiences, the program will begin with a brief lecture demonstration, narrated by Ashton.

“I definitely think the Festival of India should be a learning experience,” she said. “Some people object to (lectures), I know, but it helps establish rapport. And we’ve had standing ovations everywhere we’ve been . . . Kuchipudi is really a very fascinating art form.”