(Literally) Dancing to Her Own Tune
Bageshree Vaze on the holistic lifestyle of Indian classical artists
One may mistakenly refer to Bageshree Vaze, artistic director of Pratibha Arts, as a “contemporary” kathak artist; however, she insists otherwise: “Kathak, as a form, is completely twentieth century. Whatever is created is actually probably younger than western contemporary dance.” This year, Pratibha Arts’ A Hidden Princess was nominated for three Dora Mavor Moore Awards.
“I AM NAMED AFTER THE RAGA (MELODY) AND THERE IS no ‘h’ after the B,” writes Bageshree Vaze following my invite to arrange a meeting. Foolishly, I had misspelled her name to include an aspirated h following the ‘B,’ a common attribute to many words from South Asian languages with Sanskrit origins. Vaze, however, is named after the Hindustani classical raga that is characterized by its asymmetrical scale and evocation of longing. This is important to Vaze, a classically trained dancer, vocalist and composer. Her father selected her name.
When I connect with Vaze over Zoom, she leans back against a wall in a pink tank top while her eight-year-old son lounges in the background. We meet against the context of a global uprising for Black liberation, sparked by the police murder of George Floyd in Minneapolis, Minnesota. In the previous week, she attended a peaceful protest with other parents from her thirteen-year-old daughter’s Toronto school against a racist letter delivered to a Black teacher. “We’re at a point in history where for so long there’s been a separation of people in the very general fabric and psyche of societies; this is not going to be tolerated anymore,” she says. Before I can ask how this affects her artistic practice, she adds: “Any of the work that I do is about honouring people’s stories in a meaningful way.”
In 2018, Vaze founded the Diversity Dance Initiative, a project part of her company, Pratibha Arts, “to address the structural challenges within the dance sector that may prevent future growth and sustainability of small-scale, culturally-diverse dance companies in the downtown Toronto area.”
After years of serving on boards and panels that were eager to host conversations on “diversity” rather than demonstrate substantive change, Vaze grew increasingly frustrated. The initiative raises money for those small-scale companies, to help in a tangible way. “Unless programmers and artistic directors are racialized, we won’t see Black, Indigenous or flamenco artists on mainstages,” she states. “They have not been able to get past ballet or contemporary dance as the predominant aesthetic. And this has alienated people from liking dance in Toronto.”
Her sentiment is quantified in a 2017 study by Michael Miranda that revealed within 184 surveyed arts professionals in Canada, ninety-two per cent were white, just less than four per cent were Indigenous and just more than four per cent were visible minorities. In what can feel like a bleak reality for racialized artists, Vaze says, “I always look to the ancestors.”
Three years ago, she dusted off her bharatanatyam tapes to relearn a padam (ballad) she was to perform at the
prestigious Shanmukhananda Hall in Mumbai in honour of Guru Kalyanasundaram. The composer of the 1893 padam was Subbarama Iyer, whose early life and education remain unknown. Vaze asks, “Who was his patron? What prospects did he have?” After a breath, she says, “He created something that a girl who grew up in Newfoundland is learning in a language she doesn’t even know.”
One may mistakenly refer to Vaze as a “contemporary” kathak artist; however, she insists otherwise. “Kathak, as a form, is completely twentieth century. Whatever is created is actually probably younger than western contemporary dance. [Canadian dance institutions] qualify it as ancient or traditional because they can’t conceive it as contemporary art,” she says. When I ask Vaze how she’s managed to plant her feet within Toronto’s dance scene, she immediately laughs and replies: “I’m not sure I have! I’ve always felt like I was on this periphery, on the outside looking in.” And yet this year, Pratibha Arts’ A Hidden Princess was nominated for three Dora Mavor Moore Awards: Outstanding Production, Outstanding Performance by an Individual and Outstanding Original Sound Composition.
Vaze never had the customary first-generation experience of weekly dance lessons nestled in a suburban enclave. She migrated to St. John’s, Newfoundland, from Pune, India, at one-and-a-half years old after her father accepted a job as a pediatrician at the Janeway Hospital. At the tail end of the eighties, when Pierre Elliot Trudeau was cultivating Canada’s “multiculturalism,” a Hindu temple in St. John’s hosted a guest bharatanatyam class by Menaka Thakkar. Vaze was seven years old and this was her first introduction to Indian classical dance – she had been training in ballet before. Compelled by her own interest, she pursued lessons with the acclaimed Sudha Sekhar in Michigan while practising Hindustani music with her father at home. Over the next few years, Vaze’s summers would be occupied with travelling to Michigan for sustained learning.
“It was always this idea of going, staying and concentrating completely on what I was learning,” she says.
This practice of immersion is also how she studied kathak. In 1994, at twenty-two years old, Vaze graduated from the journalism program at Carleton University, but instead of finding a job in the industry right away (later in 1997, she took a research job at Maclean’s magazine), she found herself travelling to India to study dance. She had become acquainted with Jahanara Akhlaq, a virtuosic kathak dancer who was breaking into the Toronto arts scene before she was killed in Lahore, Pakistan. Akhlaq told a conflicted Vaze: “I have no doubt that if you really want to do this, you’ll be able to do it.”
Vaze boldly travelled to New Delhi by herself to learn from the revered kathak artist Pandit Birju Maharaj. There she became absorbed by the holistic lifestyle of Indian classical artists who are not only skilled dancers but also practiced musicians. These artists share an intricate understanding of the breath between matras (beats) and can pluck ragas from the sky. “I’ve been really lucky to have the blessings of people I regard. There were no role models of Indian classical art forms [in Toronto]. I was always looking to Pandit Ravi Shankar, to Rajan and Sajan Mishra ji. I studied with my idol of classical music, Veena Sahasrabuddhe,” she says with pride. It is this exposure and discipline that informs her practice. When asked what clicked with kathak versus bharatanatyam, she likens it to a language you are born with. “The basis of kathak is the tabla (North Indian percussion instrument) language. What I really love is the sense of agency. You can create your own dance because you have to recite everything in order to dance. You not only know exactly where the beats have fallen, it’s what you embody,” she says.
KATHAK, AS A FORM, IS COMPLETELY TWENTIETH CENTURY. WHATEVER IS CREATED IS ACTUALLY PROBABLY YOUNGER THAN WESTERN CONTEMPORARY DANCE. [CANADIAN DANCE INSTITUTIONS] QUALIFY IT AS ANCIENT OR TRADITIONAL BECAUSE THEY CAN’T CONCEIVE IT AS CONTEMPORARY ART
~Vaze
Vaze’s fluid command of music and dance contributed to the completion of her master’s of dance at York University and subsequent creation of six productions. A video of her choreography and composition titled Tarana from 2010 has amassed nearly 49,000 views on YouTube. She dances alongside Reshmi Chetram with a gentle magnetism as if sheltering a secret. A comment reads: “I have Vaze’s album and it’s phenomenal. In my Kathak class we learned a dance to this song.” Having released four full-length albums and an EP since 2001, her second release, Tarana, bears special significance; it’s meant for dancers. “There’s such a culture of dependency, particularly with the notion of giving music to perform with,” she says. “I wanted Tarana to provide high-quality music for aspiring artists to take and run with.”
That isn’t to say Vaze has limited herself to one genre; her debut album, Bageshree, daringly combines her classical training with modern pop music and electronica. The title track, Deewana, is a cheeky subversion of the Bollywood ballad. The brightly animated music video, in which she performs chakkars (spins) on the moon while escaping captivity, won an award at the 2004 Annecy International Animated Film Festival in France and the 2006 ReelWorld film festival award for Outstanding Canadian Music Video. Nearly twenty years after its release, it is like nothing ever before.
Presently, the stillness of the pandemic has offered Vaze the time to write. Following acceptance into her second weeklong writing workshop in Banff in 2015, she started seriously working on a novel (although she mentions that she feels like she has been working on it for much longer). She believes the novel is a story she can only tell through writing. It becomes clear that Vaze exists between this delicate tension of making honest work and producing a livelihood as an artist, especially within a rotten landscape. When I ask her about her hopes for the future, she looks to the past for her answer: “I want to make work that if I had been seven years old and watched it, it would have made me become a dancer,” she says. She later adds, “If there’s only been one type of programming until now, maybe we won’t return to something – maybe we’ll awaken to something new.”
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On pourrait faire l’erreur de parler de Bageshree Vaze comme une artiste de kathak « contemporain ». Pourtant, elle insiste autrement : « la forme du kathak est entièrement du vingtième siècle. Tout ce que l’on crée dans cette forme est sans doute plus jeune que la danse contemporaine occidentale. Les institutions canadiennes de danse la qualifient d’ancienne ou de traditionnelle parce qu’elles ne réussissent pas à la concevoir comme forme d’art actuel. » Quand je lui demande comment elle a réussi à s’implanter dans le milieu de la danse à Toronto, elle rit. « Je ne suis pas certaine de l’avoir fait ! Je me suis toujours sentie en périphérie ; j’observe depuis les coulisses. » Néanmoins, cette année A Hidden Princess de Pratibha Arts a été en lice pour trois prix Dora Mavor Moore : production exceptionnelle, performance exceptionnelle d’un.e interprète et composition sonore originale exceptionnelle. Lors d’un voyage au New Delhi en début de vingtaine, Vaze a été frappée par le mode de vie holistique des artistes indien.nes classiques qui étaient non seulement des interprètes doué.e.s, mais aussi des musicien.ne.s d’expérience. À ce jour, elle a publié quatre albums et un EP. Son premier disque est intitulé Bageshree.