Ashish Khokar: ‘Performing arts is not like a painting’

Ahead of the 10th edition of attenDance Awards, to be held in Bengaluru on November 30, art historian Ashish Khokar talks of the need to celebrate, assess and value dance

The 10th edition of attenDance Awards , initiated by Art historian and author, Ashish Khokar, honouring dance talent will be held on November 30 in Bengaluru. Ashish has done extensive work documenting dance, dancers and their contribution to the art. With over 45 books and 4,000 articles in the last 40 years to his credit, he teaches dance history modules at various universities and is the chairman of Dance History Society and curator of Mohan Khokar Dance Collection, named after his father, also a writer, historian and a patron of the performing arts.

Ashish talks about attenDance, that he founded in 1999, its vision and more, saying it all as it is, albeit, with a tinge of humour.

Edited excerpts:

Tell us about attenDance Awards 2024. 

It is a platform to honour exceptional dance talents. We started in the pre-internet era, when we had no clue about what happened the whole year in the field of art, who had passed away, which books were released or what were the milestones achieved in that year. This was where attenDance came in, to fill in that gap. It was a year book that documented all these and is still a year book.

The idea was to capture memories of the year gone by and I can confidently say attenDance was the only book then, on Indian dance, including Bollywood, folk and classical. We did not talk about world dance, but every thing connected to India.

attenDance Awards were initiated 15 years ago as I realised that the National awards come to some artistes pretty late in their life. Some are well into their 60s or are on wheelchairs, while some were forgotten or bypassed by the system for whatever reasons. That is when we started atteDance Awards, thinking of how we could fill this vacuum. We decided to give out awards to younger dancers under the age of 40 and to seniors artistes who were over 70 and not known nationally.

You are also a critic. What would you say are the qualities of being one?

Being a critique is interesting in the age of social media, where everyone is on their own, praising themselves. Every one is a brahma gyani (all knowing). For me, critiquing is not judging, but assessing the art and the artiste. A critic should not be judgemental, but describe and define the work presented by assessing how good the foundation of the artiste is, how well it is presented to the audience and how well they connect to the audience. In a way, a critic sets the standards of what the art work presented is.

Performing arts is not like a painting. In a painting, the art is captured for eternity, in all its splendour and value and beauty and there will never again be another painting as the one already made. Not so in dance. Dance is there and then. It is for that moment. So dance, for me, is a fragile form, which needed not just to be celebrated, but to be assessed and valued too. Dance on stage is a litmus test. That is where the art of critiquing comes in.

What about Rangapravesha? Is that not a type of a litmus test?

Rangapravesha is a mini wedding and costs parents a huge sum of money with no returns. Sorry to say this, it has become a hyped-up thing. Basically, Rangapravesha or Arangetram was presented when the guru felt the child or the ward was ready to take the first professional steps on stage. Now, it has become a rite of passage or a show-off activity, a public relations thing. It even means the person is ready for the marriage market, because dancers who marry outside the country get an advantage of having a background in culture. I believe a Rangapravesha should be simple, and gurus need not show off each child or product as an item, because not everyone can afford this extravagance. At least in classical forms, we should keep the decency and the aesthetics alive.

As an art historian, in a country as ours, brimming with varied art forms, how do you decide which form to pick and which to leave out?

At times even I wonder how I became an art historian. I was weak in mathematics and geometry, but good in history and English. When I graduated, I became a teacher of history and realised that soon I too will become history! I wanted to do something and I loved history, it came to me on auto pilot. I loved the stories the subject came with. I am blessed with a photogenic memory and since I came from a family of dance, it was easy to combine the two.

When I saw a dance or an art, I wanted to know the persona behind the work, where they came from, what backgrounds they had etc. I wrote a few biographies only because I loved the process of reconstruction.

There has been no qualified dance historian in the country. And, the ones who chronicled, either focussed only on dance or history. So it is rare that when you find these two qualities combined in a person.

Folk artistes are innocent. They come from humble or a rural background, and he/she responds to a celebration. Folk is not a star artiste, yet when you speak to them, their faces glow up.

When I started writing about films, I would watch a film more than once — for the story, for the dance, for the music and so on. Cinema is also a complete art form. Good or bad, it has a story, costumes, dance and music and I have been drawn to this too.

Which artist has been the most challenging and memorable that you have documented?

The first name that comes to mind would be Maya Rao (the late Kathak dancer). She was a mother figure to me when we moved to Bengaluru and hers is the first home we went to here. We also have the Lifetime achievement award named after her.

Mrinalini Sarabai has left an impact on me. She had nothing to do with dance, but was a pilot with Subash Chandra Bose. She came from Kerala and settled down in the dusty city of Ahmedabad after her marriage to Vikram Sarabai and she started Darpana, an institution of excellence, which, today is run by her daughter Mallika Sarabai. Mrinalini was one of the most gracious persons I have ever met, one with no pretense. Art comes from the heart and if the heart is good, the art, inevitably will also be good.

Padma Subramanyam is one of those rare dancers who is adept in theory as well as dance. She can discuss anything and has a deep knowledge of varied subjects. She is a brilliant dancer with an equally sound academic mind.

The attenDance Awards will be presented on November 30, 6pm at Alliance Francaise Hall, Vasantnagar. The event is open to all and will feature dance by the awardees and local artistes of Nadam.

Published - November 27, 2024 10:06 am IST