Colorful dresses, lightning-fast footwork and dizzying spins were some of the sights and sounds presented by Katha Dance Theater at UW-Eau Claire’s Schofield Auditorium.

As part of the Forum Artists Series, Katha Dance Theater, a company specializing in the Indian classical dance of Kathak, gave a performance on April 30. 

One of the 8 classical dances of India, Kathak is a dance form from North India that includes storytelling using hand gestures called mudras and footwork to complex rhythmic patterns.

Kathak has an ancient history and Katha’s program for the night brought this history to the audience. Rita Mustaphi, the director of Katha dance, introduced the program in three different sections detailing different phases in the dance’s history.

The first phase of the performance included three songs coming from the origin of the dance in a Hindu context. Mustaphi said Kathak started as a dramatic way of interpreting Hindu myths.

“There was a need in the community to communicate these stories,” Mustaphi said. “They would tell people how to live morally and ethically.”

The stories told in Kathak are based on the adventures of various Hindu gods, such as Krishna. Krishna is especially popular in religious songs because of his mischievous nature and because he was the subject of love poetry.

All of the songs from the Hindu era for Katha’s performance were centered around Krishna, whether it was in praise of him or detailing the playful trouble he gave to his lovers. 

The next phase of the performance focused on the Kathak dances of the court performers. These dances were for entertainment or for the praise of kings and rulers, which marked a change from the purely religious Hindu beginnings of Kathak.

“This dance was sacred, so the dancers were not allowed to perform for the kings so they brought in Persian dancers,” Mustaphi said. “Artists being artists, they snuck into the temples to copy the dancer and learn from them.”

This phase of Kathak dance coincided with the era of the Mughal Empire, and the Muslim rulers put more emphasis on the purely aesthetic parts of the dance and focused less on storytelling.

“That was considered the best time of Kathak dance. It was a renaissance for the art form and a fusion of Muslim and Hindu culture,” Mustaphi said. 

The Katha Theater dancers gave a performance of two pure dance pieces, which showed off their competence dancing to fast rhythms and making multiple pirouettes (called chakkars in Kathak) in quick succession.

Accentuating each of the dancer’s steps were traditional ankle bells called ghungroos which turned the dancer’s feet into percussive instruments. 

For the last phase of the performance, Mustaphi introduced some contemporary pieces. Mustaphi and her students danced to two songs recorded by local gospel artists.

These pieces were outside of the traditional repertoire and showed the adaptability of Indian classical dance. Since the songs were in English, it gave new audiences a way to guess the meanings of the hand gestures. 

The contemporary pieces in the program reflected some of the modern choreographic projects Katha Dance Theater is working on in the Twin Cities.

The company has 10 dancers in the performance team who do tours and outreach, and has a school with classes available year-round. 

With over 150 students and almost 40 years of impact, Katha Dance shows that Kathak dance has a continuous and evolving legacy in the Twin Cities and beyond. 

Sonnek can be reached at [email protected].