Suzanne's Mom's Blog

Photo: Yuvraj Khanna.
Of her collaboration with kathak dancers from India, tap dancer Dormeshia said, “What really struck me was how familiar some of their footwork feels. We might be using a different part of the foot, but rhythmically we’re speaking the same language.”

Recently in New York, dance traditions from two different countries collaborated to showcase their similarities — and to have some cross-cultural fun.

Brian Seibert wrote at the New York Times in February, “Some do it with metal. Others go at it barefoot and with bells on. But these dancers can communicate across those differences, through music.

“In ‘Speak,’ American tap dancers collaborate with their counterparts in kathak, a classical Indian percussive dance form. …

“On the tap side are Michelle Dorrance, the only tap dancer to have won a MacArthur grant, and Dormeshia, widely considered the world’s greatest. Representing kathak are Rachna Nivas and Rukhmani Mehta. …

“On Feb. 21, ‘Speak’ is to have its New York premiere at 92NY as the culmination of ‘What Flows Between Us,‘ a daylong festival of Indian music and dance curated by Nivas. In line with 92NY’s ‘Women Move the World’ series, of which it is a part, all the leading artists are women. …

“ ‘Speak’ has two bands: a jazz trio and a group of classical Hindustani musicians. There are traditional solos in each idiom, but the kathak dancers also jam with the jazz players, and the tap dancers trade rhythms with the tabla drummer. …

“In one sense, ‘Speak’ is a demonstration of differences between kathak and tap. Where tap dancers have amplifying metal on the bottoms of their shoes, kathak dancers drum the floor with bare feet; they wear bells around their ankles that mark accents like a shaker but also resonate nearly continuously, almost like a high-pitched drone. Each form has distinct ways of using the feet and organizing rhythm, developed over centuries.

“The collaboration has been a learning experience that both sides have had to approach with a beginner’s mind. Dorrance described the ‘insane’ but pleasurable challenge of jumping into a kathak meter of 9 ½ beats. (Tap dancers usually work in threes and fours, maybe fives.) ‘The kathak footwork is so subtle and so fast as it moves between notes that it’s hard to see what’s happening,’ she said.

“Mehta recalled struggling to understand jazz grooves and marveling at tap technique. ‘There are so many things that Michelle and Dormeshia can do with their feet that we can’t,’ she said. …

“Teaching each other has also revealed much about their own forms. ‘It’s like a mirror,’ Nivas said. ‘Michelle and Dormeshia ask me questions about things I learned without being fully aware, and I have to investigate my form to answer.’ …

“Dorrance alluded to the tradition of improvisational exchange in tap, in which one dancer will copy or ‘steal’ a move or rhythm from another dancer, then change it. This is called ‘making it your own.’

“ ‘Some of the exchange here is stealing it back,’ Dorrance said. She can take a tap step that has been translated through the bodies and traditions of the kathak dancers and incorporate it back into hers.

“ ‘We were teaching them the Shim Sham,‘ Dorrance said, referring to a routine from the 1920s that almost all tap dancers know. She noticed that the kathak dancers were shifting their weight in a manner derived from Indian technique. ‘And I’m like, “That’s a great choice, why don’t I shift my weight that way?” ‘ …

“Improvisation is an essential part of kathak, Nivas said, though these days it is often neglected in favor of choreography. With their guru, she and Mehta ‘lived it day in and day out,’ she said. ‘But with him gone, we’re always wanting to have that nourished and fed, and Michelle and Dormeshia do that.’

“This is what flows between them. ‘Hanging around with these tap dancers feels like home,’ Nivas said. …

“The women also connected through a shared reverence for elders. ‘We all take very seriously being tradition bearers and cultural historians,’ Dorrance said. The dancers spent many hours showing each other video footage of masters in their arts, many long dead, delighting in the discovery of similarities.

“ ‘Speak’ is a continuation of a project by Nivas and Mehta’s guru, [Chitresh] Das. In the early 2000s, Das, in his 60s, met the then-young tap phenom Jason Samuels Smith while jamming near the dressing rooms at a performance at the American Dance Festival. ‘It was like love at first sight,’ Nivas said. ‘They couldn’t stop dancing together.’

“That meeting grew into a duo performance, ‘India Jazz Suites,‘ which toured North America and India many times. (It was the subject of the 2013 documentary Upaj: Improvise, produced by Mehta.)

“ ‘Both had this generosity of spirit where they brought in their own communities and worlds,’ Nivas said. Through Das, Nivas met Smith, who invited her to the Los Angeles Tap Festival, where she met Dormeshia, taught kathak and bravely leaped into the intense competitions of one-upmanship that tap dancers call cutting contests.”

More at the Times, here. The little videos really illustrate the text well.