On Jan 14, 2008 3:56 PM, Suresh Ramasubramanian <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:
[makes notes about K. Vishwanath movies, and Guitar Prassana] > Yes.. I did think of Shakti, that more or less started all this. Didn't > mention it though. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shakti_(band) > John McLaughlin / guitar, L.Shankar / violin, Zakir Husain / tabla, Vikku > Vinayakram / ghatam. There's also the "Remembering Shakti" tribute group > with McLaughlin, Zakir Husain, Selvaganesh (like his dad, also on the > Ghatam), U.Srinivas (mandolin) and Shankar Mahadevan (keyboards). I confess that I actually already knew about Shakti, and have seen "Remembering Shakti" live in the US. I've also seen Zakir Hussain perform a fair number of times, including here in Bangalore when he performed with Ustad Amjad Ali Khan. That may be the intial spark of my interest in Indian music actually, lo these many years ago. > > Besides, Bharata Natyam sees a lot of personal expression - people like > > Shobana and Padma Subramaniam have done some weird shit, which I shall > > frankly confess to not understanding at all. But then, they brought > > some life into a dance form that was becoming heavily middle-class- > > brahmanized. > > There was, of course, the late Chandralekha > (http://www.guardian.co.uk/obituaries/story/0,,2009366,00.html) > > And Protima Gauri Bedi's Nrityagram near Bangalore .. she does Odissi but > they do a lot of what you are talking about, interpretations and > modernization of classical dance. Though, I must say her stuff struck me as a > bit more artsy than I care for. One excellent festival she organized though, > about a decade back .. with MS Subbulakshmi and Bhimsen Joshi among others, > was top class. > > If you want much more traditional music and dance (with a certain amount of > constant innovation of course, but not all that avant garde) there's > Kalakshetra in Madras. Do you know of any places in Bangalore where I could go see Bharata Natyam that was not "heavily middle-class-brahmanized?" (and any studying I could do before hand to better understand what I was seeing?) Thanks for all the suggestions! This is great. -- Charles
