DANCE REVIEW : Caltech Hosts Kathak Troupe

You had to know something about kathak, a classical dance form of Northern India, to know why Anjani Ambegaokar jokingly prayed for the help of any mathematicians in the Beckman Auditorium audience at Caltech Saturday night. But you didn’t have to understand complex counts of the flashy, percussive footwork to appreciate it.

Although kathak performers are fond of trying to explain the dance’s byzantine numerical formulae, sometimes--as with rapid-fire footwork of tap or flamenco--it’s better just to sit back and be amazed. There was so much to hear and see: the quick, dense slaps of bare-footed dancers whose torsos remained elegantly still as they shifted slightly from side-to-side, bright jangling of so many tiny bells circling their ankles, and the pop-pop thrumming of the tabla, small drums masterfully played by Ramesh Kumar.

As founder of locally based Anjani’s Kathak Dance of India, only the veteran Anjani took on the extended solo storytelling passages which traditionally accompany “pure” dance. In “Karna Janma,” taken from the epic “Mahabharata,” she mimed a mother who must part from her newborn son, transforming what might be melodramatic gesture elsewhere into heartfelt grief. Sailing to emotional heights with her was the sweetly rich voice of Mala Ganguly, who sat with other musicians to the side.

In other works, Anjani’s students executed decorative patterns of symmetrical and unison movement well. The Jaipur style, as seen here, highlights crisp multiple turns and darting gesture, with less of the subtle, floating aspects of kathak. Although often exciting, this emphasis on quickness sometimes led to a brittle look and barely covered strain.

“Ma Aur Betiyan,” the one experimental piece, about mothers and daughters, to taped Philip Glass and Ravi Shankar music, showed the limits of innovation when basic forms aren’t altered. As with its sister classical form, ballet, kathak is just starting to make changes that might enliven it for the next century.