A classy touch to contemporary

A chat with renowned Kathak danseuse Madhu Nataraj who tells her about her bohemian upbringing and how dance was a 'womb memory'.

It’s not easy being born to a legend. But the grace with which Madhu Nataraj has handled it surely sets an example for many. Daughter of the renowned Kathak veteran Dr Maya Rao, Madhu doesn’t remember feeling pressured ever. “Early in life itself, I realised that I had to share my mother with the world. I would often joke to her that I was her second child and that her institute Natya was her first baby,” laughs the spirited dancer. Speaking of Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography (NIKC) brings back memories of her childhood in New Delhi too. “I was born in Chennai but we moved to Delhi where mom was running the institute.”

The early years

Dance, as she says, was a “womb memory”. “There was dance, music and literature all around me. I grew up falling asleep to the sounds of the tabla or in green rooms. Often, I would be doing my homework as rehearsals were going on. I had a very bohemian life and my parents took me everywhere — from Imphal to Toronto. By the time I was 12, I had seen around 18 countries and had a whole gamut of experiences ranging from simple to fancy,” she says. At the request of Ramakrishna Hegde, the then chief minister of Karnataka, the family moved to Bengaluru to set up NIKC in the city. A sleepy little town back then, Bengaluru hadn’t seen as much of Kathak as Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi, recalls Madhu.

But as they say, too much of anything is bad, and Madhu soon became “saturated” by dance. “I didn’t have the wisdom to realise that I was learning so much through osmosis. Apart from watching my mother walk, talk and teach dance, I was observing all these great scholars and musicians too who would come home. Everyone would tell me that dance was in my blood but I didn’t want to pursue it further. So when we came to Bengaluru, I joined Mount Carmel College and took a break from dance for a few years and participated in various other competitions like painting and management.”

The return to dance

However, dance came naturally to the beautiful danseuse and the return to it was inevitable. The realisation dawned upon her back in the place where she had spent her childhood — New Delhi. “There was an American festival that my mother had sent me for. Honestly, I agreed to go there to meet my old friends and earn a handsome stipend. But my mother knew deep down that I needed a cathartic experience,” she expresses. “So I signed up for the improvisation classes and during one of the activities, we had to create movements with our index finger. By the end of it, my trainer told me that if I could create so many movements using just three joints, how much more I could do if I used all the joints of my body. That’s when I realised that I had a natural talent that I could use,” she adds.

Post the session, Madhu, who was in Triveni Kala Sangam, rushed to the Bengali Market to make a trunk call to Dr Maya, who was in Bengaluru. “I asked her if could join the choreography course at NIKC and she said only if I was ready to choose creative satisfaction over monetary benefits.” Madhu then returned to Bengaluru to study choreography in the mornings and journalism in the evenings. She later went to New York but returned to India with a mission to create a vocabulary for Indian contemporary dance. And as they say, the rest is history.

Not only did she carry her mother’s legacy forward with aplomb and took NIKC forward but also carved a niche for herself by forming the STEM Dance Kampni in 1995, which presented an amalgamation of contemporary and classical dance. Needless to say, the audience loved it! “I have always struggled with this dual identity — that of a Kathak and a contemporary dancer. There is no ‘or’ for me. I want both this ‘and’ that as it allows me a glimpse of both worlds. Co-existing with modernity is what my company stands for and this applies to every realm of my life,” she affirms.

A conference of thoughts

After the demise of Dr Maya Rao in 2014, Madhu continued to lead NIKC to greater heights. “My bond with my mother was very strong — when she passed away, I felt like I had lost three people — my mother, my guru and my best friend.” With time, Madhu also wanted to organise an event that not only paid a fitting tribute to her mother but also looked at dance as a living entity and explored the deeper connections it shares with the forces around it. Thus, the ‘Dr Maya Rao Kathak and Choreography Conference’ came into being in 2019.

The fourth edition of the conference, with the theme of ‘Re-juvenescence’, was held recently in the city and attempted to take a look at performing arts in the post-pandemic world. With names like Dr Anita Ratnam, M D Pallavi, Malavika Sarukkai, Kalyan Akkipedi, Jayachandran Palazy and Dr Prabha Chandra coming together under a roof, the conference had a host of thought-provoking talks peppered with some fabulous performances. “I am happy that such amazing people from the world of art, philanthropy, healing and innovation were all part of the conference. We discussed topics that were ancient as well as relevant as being socially conscious was important to Dr Maya Rao. She used to say that artistes are also citizens of this world and we should be the change that we want to see.”