Gupta bridges ocean of ideas and styles in latest show
Usha Gupta bridges poetry and dance in her life’s artistic journey, writes Roger Levesque.
As Usha Gupta glides into her seventh decade, her artistic vision seems an ocean of opportunity. Edmonton’s preeminent mistress of Indian classical dance continues to expand and refine her notion of what the form and the music might involve. While her background is rooted in the classical kathak style and lucknow school of Northern India where she was born, Gupta admits that the works she choreographs today tend to be a hybrid of influences.
“Kathak is a less formal style that lets you express your inner feelings in a more open, versatile manner. Kathak gives you more opportunities to do things and I take some liberties with the style. But being here so long has opened my vision of choreography too so there is a hybrid here. Like an ocean it is never-ending. Every day you are learning new things.”
You’ll see echoes of the centuries-old dance traditions she grew up learning in India, reflections of her interest with flamenco, and tweaks from contemporary western dance styles.
Her latest show Khoj translates roughly as “the search” and involves a cast of six dancers including three top male dancers from India, Anuj Mishra, Souvik Chakraborty and Ayan Banerjee.
The eight-member music ensemble directed by Bangalore-based multi-instrumentalist-composer Praveen D. Rao from an electric keyboard, with Bangalore vocal virtuoso Varijashree Venugopal and top players from Edmonton’s scene like tabla percussionist Ojas Joshi, violinist Cam Neufeld and cellist Joanne Yu. Gupta also sings and plays. Following her own original concept, the show’s seven parts start with Ocean, followed by Blending, Reciting, Search For Love, Tarana or Rhythmic Patterns, Search For Spirituality, and Sufi or Divine Truth. As her program notes explain:
“At the heart of my inspiration for this piece is the idea that if you search for the beauty within an unshaped space, the poetry inherent in the physical body will be revealed, and the spirit of dance will be expressed, similar to how a sculptor searches for the statue hidden within the uncut rock.”
She says her khoj or search is on “many levels” from “the primordial urge” to the delicate movements of the wrist, neck, eyes and eye brows in kathak dance, to the 16-beat rhythmic cycle, to the search through choreography to find one’s inner essence.
“In India, I came to the realization that Khoj is about the journey, not just the destination, just as art itself is about process as much as it is about performance. My search will never end.”
The project has also allowed Gupta a chance to work in echoes of some of the earliest dances she learned as a child though she emphasizes that rehearsals have been crucial to shaping both the
dance and music portions of the final show.
“Everyone has been here working in my studio up to five hours at a time, and I’m getting something from them too. It’s not just my ideas. It’s really a collaboration ... I love it.”
While Gupta’s involvement with classical music and dance began in childhood it wasn’t a career path until her mother-in-law (principal at an arts school) pushed her to get more deeply involved. By then she had completed her master’s degree when she married and moved from her birthplace, Julandhar in the Punjab province, to the city of New Delhi. Already a featured singer on All India Radio, she was invited to choreograph dances for television once that medium took off.
A subsequent move to Dubai and then Qatar in the Middle East brought her even greater notice when she was called upon to create and produce music and dance events for international dignitaries. Then her daughter married a Canadian in Edmonton and a wish to maintain ties brought Gupta here in 1989.
She’s very thankful for her life in Canada.
“Here I’ve had such lovely opportunities and such support for whatever I wanted to do, but this is my passion, my life. I love to work.”
Since she started her own dance school Usha Kala Nikedan (Usha Arts Studio) with just two students in her basement in 1989, some 150 students now attend Gupta’s custom studio where she teaches kathak, bharantanatyam and other classical dance styles.