In Focus | seeki n g r hy thm s
As the Manipuri dancers spun on stage,
the music of their ghungroos made me a little wistful. My own
ghungroos have not seen the light of day for about six years. Stored away in a large wooden trunk with my dance costume and jewellery, they represent a now neglected part of my life. The 11th-century Chitragupta temple, dedicated to the sun god, provided a brilliant backdrop, much as it might have hundreds of years ago. The courtyard-like stage with pillars, doorways, and steps carved with motifs, became an added element in the dance piece, with soft light illuminating the intricate work. The dancers could indeed be devdasis, and all of us the enthralled townsfolk. Khajuraho’s golden sandstone temples, built by the Chandela kings between the 9th and 12th centuries, are its crowning
hritu pawar facing page: satish parashar/dinodia photo rf/dinodia photo library (sculptures), marco brivio/age fotostock/dinodia photo library (temple)
I was among a crowd of hundreds, at the week-long Khajuraho Dance Festival, which takes place annually in February in this little town in Madhya Pradesh. We watched the troupe from the Shadhona dance academy in Dhaka on an open-air stage, designed to look like a sprawling temple courtyard. The classical dance ballad they performed was set to the music of Manipuri instruments and the familiar words of a Bengali kirtan. Gentle but nimble, the dancers moved in sync with the drumbeats of the barrel-shaped pakhawaj—nothing short of art in motion.
The dancers on stage at the Khajuraho Dance Festival are like live versions of the carved figurines that adorn the pillars, walls, and inner sanctums of the town’s temples.
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national Geographic Traveller INDIA | september 2016