Hitting the road with musicians
Many stories are created while on tour with musicians. The author talks about her first international one.
Live music accompaniment for performance played a prominent role in my decision to live in India rather than returning to the U. S. decades ago. The freedom to innovate on stage, the synergy of all the elements being created together in time and space for a live audience, in the moment, can be like oxygen to a solo classical Indian dancer. I do appreciate that many dancers have come to depend on recorded music. It is convenient and reduces expenses for travel and payments to the team. It may also guarantee a level of quality when musicians are not available for sufficient rehearsals or preferred accompanists aren’t free.
The dynamics of a dancer’s interaction with her/ his musicians will be dramatically different depending on if the dancer is junior or senior to the accompanists, providing a monthly stipend ( lucky few!) or working with them occasionally. Touring together compounds this as you work, travel, live and interact almost 24/ 7 for extended periods of time.
We all hear tales of rock bands on the road, but nary a whisper from the wealth of stories from dancers and the musicians who accompany them. I could probably fill a book with my personal stories and those I have heard, so I’ll focus here on my first international tour with musicians. My accompanists were legendary; Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra on pakawaj, Pt. Bhubaneswar Misra on violin, Sri Rakhal Mohanty on vocals and Kelubabu’s son, Ratikant on manirajs. After an Odissi performance at Azad Bhavan, Alan Nazareth, ICCR director, asked what I did about music when abroad and offered to cover the international travel for accompanists if I organised a tour meeting their requirements. I somehow selforganised a tour across eight U. S. states with 22 performances and lecture-demonstrations and, despite many stones thrown in the path, they actually arrived and we all spent six weeks together.
The traditional way Indian performing artists are hosted in the U. S. is to be met at the airport with garlands and whisked in two vehicles to a huge, elegant home of an Indian heart surgeon or investment banker. Dinners are the best recipes of the community combined for post performance receptions. The modern variation is to be paid a higher fee, stay in a hotel, and minimise the demands of hosting artists by families who all work. My tour was a combination of both as performances were primarily in universities, colleges and art centres, some of whom contacted the local Indian community for help hosting.
A memorable week in the middle of my tour had been organised by an arts manager who scheduled one performance per day in cities just a 4- 6 hour drive apart. What she didn’t consider was that I was the only driver among the five of us, as well as being the solo dancer each evening. Each early morning I would drive off to the next city with a car full of backseat drivers constantly questioning the reading on the speedometer and my reading of the road signs. It was too funny that I could not object to my seniors as any other driver in America would under the circumstances. On arrival in the new city, the musicians would get settled in the hotel or university guesthouse while I went to the theatre for a 2- hour set and rehearsal light cues. I car- ried a light plot for small or large stage with extracoloured gels in case they didn’t have what was needed. Generally, this was followed or preceded by a local radio or press interview and a stop to get film developed and new film rolls for Ratikant, Guruji’s son. Makeup, performance and repeat the same goodnatured backseat driving.
Fortunately, we enjoyed more traditional hosting as well. The ethnomusicology professor at San Diego State University asked Odia Purna Pattanayak if he would host a visiting American Odissi dancer and musicians. This was the first information to the Odia community of the tour. I hadn’t promoted my tour on the basis of Guru Kelucharan’s name just in case he wasn’t able to come and I be accused of misrepresenting. After this, every large city had a wonderful Odia dinner reception for us, though they didn’t know quite what to make of me. One lovely young woman asked Guruji, “Are you the real Kelucharan Mohapatra as my father says he would never accompany an American dancing, must be some other K. C. Mohapatra.” I had naively thought that the musicians would enjoy trying other cuisines, especially Thai and some Chinese, but discovered that regular north Indian khaana was second only to Odia, and there was no third! I also had to be scrupulous in checking that no beef fat was used in any French fries or other cooking media at restaurants and university cafeterias.
Kelubabu required paan and I had promised that he would not have to do without it during the tour. He had an ingenious method of layering paan leaves between cloths with just enough moisture to stay fresh without rotting. Even so, his stock did eventually run out and I was happy to get a bunch of paan patta imported from Hawaii from an Indian store south of Los Angeles. However, when he discovered the cost, both he and Misraji insisted I not buy more and they would be content with supari till they got back to India.
I always chuckle when I remember our getting off the plane in Los Angeles and Shibu ( Ratikant) asking, “Where’s the car?” I said just wait here and went to get the reserved car rental. We stayed at my dear friend Jan Stewart’s magical artist’s cottage in Griffith Park. It was at Jan’s that I had first met Hari Prasad Chaurasia and Shivkumar Sharma in the late 70s when I stayed with her doing hundreds of school programmes in the area. I am not addicted to the kitchen, but Rakhal- da was a wonderful cook. He created fun, kitchen mess and delicious Odia food in L. A., at my mother’s home in Michigan and at my home at the time in Shreveport. Louisiana. In these settings, it was like a giant slumber party with bedding all over the living spaces as there weren’t enough extra bedrooms for all.
Beside the performances, it was a pleasure to take him and the troupe to interesting places along the way: Disneyland on the West Coast and Niagara Falls and museums on the East Coast. Kelubabu was always interested in everything and everyone he encountered. If seated at dinner next to a young American learning Indian music, Kelubabu was more interested in what made him want to learn Indian music than is focusing on the food.
The hosts, their stories, the lessons and joys and challenges of touring with musicians are endless, but I shall end this as the tour ended. Fortunately one story ends and another begins. A few months later, I again toured with Kelubabu, this time around India for a dozen performances as part of the AIISsponsored Festival of IndiaReturn tour celebrating their donation of a massive American Indological collection of writing.