SF Ethnic Dance Festival Review: Ambitious India journey

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The San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival launched its 36th edition Saturday afternoon at Lam Research Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, with something unusual: a survey of all eight forms of Indian classical dance.

Said to be the first concert of its kind in this country, the show broke somewhat with the festival’s mandate; not all those dance forms are performed or taught in the Bay Area, so artists from Los Angeles, Texas and Pennsylvania were recruited for the project.

Still, geographical origins aside, this first major entry in the festival’s fare added up to a tribute to a rich and fascinating tradition in world culture, dispelling many previously held notions of Indian dance. But the concert itself – 12 events spread over 2 1/2 hours, some but not all accompanied by live music – was both an illuminating and frustrating affair.

Do the math. The essence of a dance form with a history that stretches back millennia cannot be distilled into a quarter of an hour, even by ethnographers, and while the festival’s program notes were helpful, they also traded in generalities. Some of the attractions ignited revelations; others left one appreciative but unmoved. The aura of a stunt just didn’t go away.

While veteran dancers left their mark, it was gratifying to witness so many performers of the younger generation. The particulars and philosophy of Indian dance are largely transmitted orally and lessons are being absorbed. Bharatanatyam is much practiced in the Bay Area, but young Bhavajan Kumar hails from Canada; his performance of a tribute to Lord Shiva on Saturday was a sizzler, all eye-bending spins and articulation, all pegged to the superb music-making of an onstage consort.

Then it was impossible not to fall in love with the boy-girl pairing of Maya Lochana Devalcheruvu, 11, and Akhil Srinivasan Joondeph, 10, in “Guru Shradha,” a courtly duet in the Odissi style.

In light of the sudden death last week of master performer K.P. Kunhiraman (to whom this year’s festival is dedicated), interest centered on his company, Kalanjali. This fusion of bharatanatyam and rarely encountered kathakali was irresistibly lovely. Eight women melt into patterns, mingling canons and unisons, bare feet hitting the stage with mesmerizing force. The intricate form left one comparing the dance with the finest structural achievements of what we know as ballet.

A fusion of kathakali and the dramatic and spiritually oriented form known as mohiniattam featured the remarkable Sunanda Nair in a chilling vignette involving a dead child and the expelling of evil from the body. Nair returned for a sinuous traveling solo in the mohiniattam style.

An exponent of manipuri, Sohini Ray offered two short numbers, both drawn from longer pieces and not too effective taken out of context. Ray looked awkward in a drum dance, traditionally performed by men. Sujata Mohapatra stressed proportion in her Odissi-style number, “Varsha-The Rains,” in which interprets movement found in the animal world. The costume itself was a source of wonder.

The program’s sole example of kuchipudi came from San Jose-based Natyalaya, whose gentle jumps and melting symmetries summoned superlatives. Sattriya (almost unknown in this country) found exquisite interpreters in Philadelphia’s Madhusmita Bora and Prerona Bhuyan. The piece built into a mystic web of feelings, To conclude, four well-rehearsed young women of Marin’s Chitresh Das Dance Company spun and sparkled in a skirt-swirling demonstration of kathak. They had the most thrilling music, too. There must be a connection there.

This week, the Ethnic Dance Festival resumes its traditional mixed bills.