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TRANSCRIPT
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PAPER 4
Detail Study Of Kathak, Nautch Girls, Nritta, Nritya, Different
Gharana-s, Present Status, Institutions, Artists
Module 25 Kathak In Films
Kathak has been easily and freely assimilated in mainstream
cinema. This has been possible due to language outreach
(Hindi/Urdu/Punjabi/Awadhi/Bhojpuri) and also due to cultural
closeness of the subject.
Kathak was story-telling in temples and thus the same devise
has been easily adapted in Hindi films. The stories of nautch
dancers, or tawaifs, or courtesans or, classical dancers have all
added to body of film works. The first full-length feature film
made in India - Raja Harish Chandra - used north Indian dances
minimally and Kathak being from north and central India, had
easy access and viewership. This 1913 Indian silent film was
directed and produced by Indian icon Dadasaheb Phalke. The
film had an all-male cast as no woman was available for playing
female leads. Phalke struggled to get women, including nautch
girls, to agree to act in the film. He hence had to cast a delicate-
looking man Anna Salunke/अन्ना साल ुंके to play the role of
Queen Taramati, Harish Chandra’s wife. Phalke discovered
Salunke, who used to work in a restaurant as a cook, for this
role. Salunke would later play the role of both Rama and Sita in
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Phalke’s 1917 film Lanka Dahan and become the most popular
actor of his time.1
The plethora of mythological films introduced a different slant
to the use of music and dance in Hindi cinema. As the formula
for romantic and soulful rendition of song and a simplistic
dance number by the heroine could not apply to the gods and
goddesses of mythology, such films required greater emphasis
on dance. Most heroes or heroines could not dance and the
notion of choreography did not exist. Consequently, studios
contracted trained classical dancers from different parts of the
country. Interestingly, the initial dances in films were by the
best dancers in the country who conceptualized and
choreographed for them. Directors gave the dancers basic
instructions and guidelines and song and dance numbers with
elaborate sets and costumes were posturized to add to the
fantasy of ‘Devlok’ or ‘Indralok.’
Trained classical dancers such as Sitara Devi and later Gopi
Krishna and western style dancer Azoorie kicked off the
popularity of the classical dance form in Hindi films. These
dancers were so popular that the film posters highlighted
“dances by Sitara Devi.” Dance masters such as Prof. More often
composed these elaborate stage dances. As dancing became
more popular the need for dance masters and later
choreographers was felt. Azoorie, one of the popular dancers of
the very early days, trained two boys Surya Kumar and Krishna
Kumar who in turn started training actors to dance to their own
tunes. Choreographers such as P. L. Raj, Satyanarayan,
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Badriprasad and a host of others came in then.2 The era of
dance started in Hindi films with the entry of trained dancing
actresses Padmini, Ragini and Vyjayanthimala from the south. In
any film featuring these actresses there would definitely be
dance!
1940s: Uday Shankar’s seminal film Kalpana, the first fully
choreographed film released in 1948 also had portions on
Kathak. The story of this film was based on dance. This reached
out to many as the film had a national release. S.S. Vasan’s
Chandralekha had choreography by Tarun Chopra, a disciple of
Uday Shankar. Ram Gopal too used Kathak sequences in his
films, making it internationally popular. Zohra Sehgal is special
because she showcased the Uday Shankar dance style in film
two years before Kalpana was released. That film was Neecha
Nagar (1946, Hindi), and her contribution was two beautiful
dances (a "twin" and "trio" dance) with graceful side sways,
undulations, arm positions, and hand gestures that look directly
inspired by the Uday Shankar style as evidenced from extant
footage of Kalpana. Her daughter Kiran Sehgal’s
book Fatty sheds some light on the influence Zohra had on
dance through her training of everyone associated with Prithvi
Theatres. Kiran notes that students, Suresh Bhatt and
Satyanarayan, later went on to give dance direction in films,
and she also lists Badnam (directed by DD Keshav) as one of
Zohra's film choreographies. Kiran notes that the female
dancers identified in the credits of Neecha Nagar, Ruma
Ganguly and Gopa Lal, were students of Zohra at Prithvi
Theatres!3
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Kathak soon gained currency in mainstream Hindi cinema of
Bombay and many dancers were trained in Kathak like Sadhona
Bose, Devika Rani, Waheeda Rehman, Meena Kumari, Sandhya
Shantaram among others. Sadhona Bose was a contemporary
of Uday Shankar. A classically trained dancer (Kathak dance
under Taraknath Bagchi and Manipuri under Guru Senarik
Rajkumar) Tough Sadhona was an actress she was a dancer first
and all her film successes were in dancing roles. She even sang
her own songs in some of her films including her first Alibaba.
An English version of her best-known film, Raj Nartaki (1941)
was distributed in the USA as Court Dancer.
1950s: Most of the Kathak found in Indian films tends toward
the courtesan/mujra style of Kathak with a focus on abhinaya
(expressive interpretation), lyrical poetry, and a slower pace to
show off the dancer's feminine charms. In cases where the
pace quickens to feature footwork and spins, the dances still
aren’t up to par and the dancer's lack of lengthy Kathak training
usually shows (or in the case of Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje, the
dancer - Gopi Krishna - is clearly trained but "spices up" the
dance for film so much that it strays from classical Kathak).
Film Kathak often features close-up shots of the dancer’s
footwork, but it’s almost always a shadow of the real thing.
There are a few film dances, however, that are gleaming
exceptions to the rule in their presentation of rhythmic,
technical Kathak, and the star of this style is undoubtedly
Kumari Roshan. Roshan’s dance style was certainly a product of
her training in the Jaipur gharana of Kathak. In the 1959 Bengali
film Jalsagar directed by Satyajit Ray, Roshan performs a
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"trivet," a fast-paced dance item popular in the Jaipur style but
rarely performed today. In the historical film Mirza
Ghalib (Hindi, 1954) set in the time of the “magnificence of the
court of the last Mughal” the story follows the romance of the
Indian poet Mirza Ghalib and a dancer who was played by
Roshan. Roshan Kumari is said to have danced in quite a few
Bengali and Hindi films, one of which was Basant Bahar
(Bengali, 1957). In Parineeta (Hindi, 1953), we have a double-
whammy with Roshan Kumari and Gopi Krishna as performers!
Gopi Krishna wowed with his effortless turbo-spins and Roshan
had delightful form in the way she holds herself.4
V. Shantaram made films based on dance characters as his own
partner Sandhya, whom he married later, was an accomplished
folk dancer knowing many classical forms; thus many of his
films from Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje (1955) to Jal Bin Machchli
Nritya Bin Bijalee (1971) used Kathak heavily. The latter film had
a plot which allows almost everyone to declare their willingness
to sacrifice themselves for love, or for dance, or for the love of
dance. Though earlier Sandhya had almost given up dancing
because of backache, she staged a comeback as a dancer in this
picture with a vengeance. Her snake dance, beautifully shot
outdoors, is a visual delight.
One must remember where, when and how dance came in
films! Each film had minimum of 6 to 8 songs (RPM and LP vinyl
records had two sides and each side had 3 to 4 songs) thus,
each film had 6-8 songs and most songs had to be danced or
enacted to a storyline. Thus films gave allowance for such
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depiction through song and dance, thus also earning the
sobriquet from international cinema community (and
audiences) that Indian films were all “song and dance” story or
sequence, which could also be demonstrated by dance. As
Kathak was the only north Indian form, it became very popular
and thus won instant audiences. Folk forms were also very
easily involved and thus dance permeated all aspects of film
making.
1960s: Many actresses came from south India and brought
Bharatanatyam with them; and this also helped pan Indian
audiences see this form. By then the Bombay film industry had
benefit of great gurus like Lachchu Maharaj, Kundanlal Gangani,
Mohanrao Kalyanpurkar who composed dance sequences using
Kathak.
Pandit Lachchu Maharaj of the Lucknow gharana made a
significant contribution to Hindi film choreography. The first
main film using story of a dancer - a courtesan - Anarkali was
Mughal-E-Azam (1960), in which the great K. Asif used
Madhubala who danced mostly Kathak, composed by Lachchu
Maharaj and Shambhu Maharaj. Mughal-e-Azam enchanted
audiences with its majestic sets, elaborate dance sequences
and soulful music. The dance sequences featuring Madhubala
and hundreds of junior artistes took the audience’s breath
away. Anarakali was a nautch dancer with whom young prince
Salim (played by a young Dilip Kumar alias Yusuf Khan) falls in
love much to the dislike of his father, the King, played by
theatre doyenne Prithiviraj Kapoor.
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Pakeezah was another film choreographed by Pt. Lachchu
Maharaj with elaborate Kathak dance sequences. The film tells
the story of a Lucknow tawaif played by actress Meena Kumari.
All the Kathak dance sequences were performed by an ailing
Meena Kumari herself except for the last dance sequence
wherein a body double (Padma Khanna) was used in the long-
shots. Meena Kumari died weeks after the film was released.
The cameraman and director K. Asif Khan later married well
known Kathak dancer Sitara Devi. From when she was just 12,
Sitara Devi performed dance sequences in Hindi movies like her
debut in Usha Haran (1940), Nagina (1951), Roti, Vatan
(1954), Anjali (1957). In Mother India (1957), she performed a
Holi dance dressed as a boy. After that, she stopped performing
dances in movies to concentrate on Kathak. She taught Kathak
to many Bollywood celebrities like Madhubala, Rekha, Mala
Sinha and Kajol.
Sohanlal also introduced Kathak in Hindi films. He was also one
of the first teachers of today’s superstar choreographer Saroj
Khan. His brother Hiralal also took up the profession of
choreography and was an established dance director himself.
Sohanlal’s hit films included Jewel Thief, Chaudvin Ka Chand,
Saheb Bibi Aur Ghulam and Satyam Shivam Sundaram.
1970s: Gopi Krishna, a nephew of Sitara Devi, rose to establish
Kathak in a big way in films. He added immensely to the Kathak
profile and outreach. Although he came and himself performed
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in festive songs like on Holi or village fair, he soon became a
popular choreographer and did many films. One of his dancing
partners was Padma Khanna and she too became established as
Kathak dancer in films, in addition to doing character or cameo
roles. Gopi Krishna was born into a family of Kathak dancers. His
maternal grandfather Pandit Sukhdev Maharaj was a teacher of
Kathak and his aunt Sitara Devi was a Kathak dancer who had
performed around the world. In 1952, 17-year-old Gopi Krishna
became one of the youngest choreographers in Hindi
film history when he was hired to choreograph dances
for Madhubala in Saqi. In 1955, he appeared as dancer-actor in
his first film Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje. In the film he played
Girdhar, a talented young dancer whose love for his partner
jeopardizes his dancing career. Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baaje is
filled with Gopi Krishna’s dances such as his famous
introductory pirouette-pillar dance and his energetic tandava
with Sandhya. The film was successful and helped to revitalize
public interest in classical dance. It is known that he danced
with Roshan Kumari before that in Parineeta (1953) and he also
danced in Aandhiyan (1952) in which he choreographed for
himself.5
Gopi Krishna choreographed for many films like
Grahasti (1963), Dastaan, Mehbooba, Umrao Jaan, Naache
Mayuri (1986) and The Perfect Murder (1988). You'll notice in
Gopi’s dance duets that he is usually paired with a female
dancer who can keep up with him and possesses a similar in-
born joy to her dance - Helen lookalike Madhumati,
Vyjayanthimala, Kamala, Priyadarshini, Helen herself, and
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Roshan Kumari. Only one dance of his exists with Kamala
in1959’s Naach Ghar. Gopi Krishna was a prolific choreographer
in Indian cinema. He composed the Sayee-Subbulakshmi
Kathak duet in Bharosa (1963). His compositions featured
ecstatic movements, sharp transitions, ample spins, and an
almost super-human pace with movements inspired by classical
dances particularly Kathak. While Gopi is listed as one of the
choreographers for Umrao Jaan (1981), he only composed for
one dance because the producers “were dissatisfied with Gopi's
work after he composed the first number and wanted
something more authentic” and soon hired the talented Kathak
dancer, Kumudini Lakhia.6
All through this phase, the 1950s to 1980s, although there was
Kathak and other forms, cabaret too was popular and no film
was complete without one number by Helen or Shashikala or
Bindu. In fact, Helen made dances very popular without ever
looking cheap. This woman singly won new audiences for
dance, cabaret or Indian forms. She even competed with
Vyjayantimala, a star from south, trained in Bharatanatyam, in a
duet in the film Prince (1969) where Helen did jazz, flamenco
and an Arabian Night’s routine, and Vyjayanthimala did
Bharatanatyam, Kathak and Kathakali along with apt changes in
costume for the song Mukabala hum se na karo.
Vyjayanthimala’s dances in Amrapali and Waheeda Rehman’s in
Guide were famous.
In the 1970s Jeetendra (father of Ekta and Tushar Kapoor) was
called Jumping Jack due to his dancing and even before him
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non-dancing stars like Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Raaj Kumar
danced few steps that looked like Kathak! Other classical forms
were too difficult or alien for them to even try to do, though
most undertook folk forms easily.
1990s: Madhuri Dixit tried to use her basic knowledge of Kathak
in films like Tezaab and desired to learn from masters like Pt
Birju Maharaj. He has directed, composed music and sung for
two classical dance sequences in the film Shatranj Ke Khiladi
(The Chess Players) directed by Satyajit Ray. One was a group
dance picturised on Wajid Ali Shah (Amjad Khan) shown
dancing along with his queens. Birju Maharaj’s ace disciple
Saswati Sen did all the court dances. The other was a solo
dance forming the backdrop of a crucial sequence of the story.
He directed and composed a music piece for the film Dil to
Paagal Hai, as a jugalbandi. Madhuri Dixit performed the dance
on this piece in the Kathak style, with a contemporary touch. In
the film Gadar, he choreographed a group dance based on the
song Aan Milo Sajana, forming a backdrop to show Ameesha
Patel’s turmoil. He choreographed, composed music for and
was the male lead singer for the song Kahe chhed mohe in the
film Devdas. This dance represents a true portrayal of bhava as
performed by Madhuri Dixit, in the classical style. His disciples
have performed as the accompanying artistes for these dance
sequences, along with the film personalities. P.L. Raj, Bhagwan,
Saroj Khani, Vaibhavi Merchant, and others have added to the
large body of work.
2000s: Audience tastes began to be changed by filmmakers who
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began offering gymnastics by way of dance sequences largely
because actresses were not trained in any one dance form
properly and could not be bothered to learn one either! Thus, a
new breed of starlets can only move like athletes and gymnasts
and so choreographers too have devised easy movements.
Though this has been the general trend, a few exceptions also
exist, like Birju Maharaj choreographing for Sanjay Leela
Bhansali’s Devdas featuring Aishwarya Rai and Madhuri Dixit.
Luna Pan, Debosmita Mukherjee, Pallabi De and Swati Ghosal,
all students of Pt. Birju Maharaj have performed in the song
Kahe chhed mohe composed by Birju Maharaj in Devdas. He
was the winner of the National Award for Best Choreography
(2013) for choreographing the song Unnai Kaanadhu Naan,
which featured Kamal Haasan performing Kathak in his
multilingual film, Vishwaroopam.
Kumudhini Lakhia is one of the very first women dancers to
choreograph not only for the stage but also for films like Umrao
Jaan (1981) and Sur Sangam. Based on the
famous Lucknow courtesan, Umrao Jaan starred Bollywood
actress Rekha in the main role. Director Muzaffar Ali hired the
best choreographers (Gopi Krishna and Kumudini Lakhia) and
watching the film, one would be surprised to know that Rekha
had no formal training in Kathak dance, which was the
backbone of the movie based in that era. The courtesan was a
well-trained Kathak dancer, hence Rekha went through training
to master her dance sequences. In an interview Rekha confided,
“In fact to be authentic in my dance movements, besides Gopi
Krishnaji and Kumudini Lakhiaji, Muzaffar Ali had also invited
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many Nawabs of the bygone era, who were acquainted to
the mujras. These nawabs were exclusively called to closely
monitor my Kathak steps and many a times they guided me and
came up with valuable suggestions thus making my dance
standout.''8
Thus Kathak gurus have not shied from composing for
mainstream cinema, without sacrificing content for
entertainment. In this new century, although Kathak is sort of
marginalized in films (as are all classical forms) because old
themes have given way to new, still focused directors like
Muzaffar Ali make period films like Umrao Jaan. In his latest
film Jaanisaar (2015), for one of the songs, lyrics were taken
from the poetry of Wajid Ali Shah and Rahi Masoom Raza. The
heroine of this period film is a courtesan played by Pernia
Qureshi, a trained Kathak dancer.
Among TV documentaries made exclusively on Kathak, mention
must be made of Sukhdev’s 1971 documentary featuring
Roshan Kumari, Damayanti Joshi, Sudarshan Dheer and Birju
Maharaj. Doordarshan has done some documentation but
nothing focused. SNA documents only those it awards! That
way many have been left out. In recent decades, the highest
TRP ratings on dance series on national TV was Taal Mel made
by Sharmistha Pranab Mukherjee and Ashish Mohan Khokar for
Doordarshan.
Kathak as a genre has captured national imagination because of
Hindi films in large way, just like in the 1940s Bharatanatyam
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came to southern films. Many actresses were trained in classical
dance, making it easy for them to absorb and learn quickly and
prime example are Vyjayanthimala, Hema Malini and Rekha
after the first generation of greats mentioned in opening paras.
These leading ladies were adept in horse riding, swimming,
tennis and classical dances! Talk of multi-tasking! Kathak has
now become nationally known and accepted and in no small
measure is the contribution of films and film makers,
choreographers and composers.