New Series: Joy of Dancing

My regular readers and blogging friends know about my passion for dancing, and my grieve that I had to stop aftre the first months of my pregnancy... Now my little one is four months old and my body is craving for beautiful movements with music! I have been a practicioner for fifteen years now of Folklore and Women Dances from the Mediterranean Sea and the Balkans, extending my interest along the Silk Road to India - and beyond... I get excited with the music, precious costumes and, most of all, with the feeling of my bare feet touching the ground.

I have always experinced dancing as something more than just a work out; it is a sort of meditation in the movement. The deep immersion in the flow of rhythm and melody join together my scattered thoughts and let my body feel free and full of energy after long periods of physical and intellectual tension I go through while wrinting.

So I decided to share thoughts on dance styles, events and teachers in (more or less) sporadic posts.

Today I want to start briefly with an announcement, but it means so much to me!
In september I will organize for the first time a performance cum workshops in my hometown Weimar, hopefully the first of many many beautiful events.

Fabulous Classical Indian dancers Poonam Panchwagh (Pune, India) and Anne Dietrich (Leipzig, Germany) are going to perform Kathak dance from North India...

....and Mohiniyattam dance from South India (Kerala) ...

... as well as an audacious fusion of both styles.

I got to know both dancers last year when I attended their workshops in Leipzig and I was smitten by both their fabulous teaching and friendly manner. Looking forward to seeing you!

More information about the Company Srijan here.

Weekend in Kathak

I spent the last weekend in the city where I grew up, in Würzburg, giving a intensive Kathak class for beginners at the Würzburg University (department for Indology) in cooperation with the German-Indian Association. We had an overview of Kathak history and dance theory, but of course dancing practice was in the center of the course. We had lots of fun practising in the yard of the University with great sunshine!
Thank you girls for the warm welcome and the wonderful atmosphere!
See you soon ;-)

Teach youself Kathak

Friday the DVDs arrived and I had much fun testing them this weekend!
For every dancer who would like to have an even deeper insight into Kathak dancing these DVDs are a good chioce, not only because there are no others on the market! You have an introduction on each disc with general informations on the cultural phenomenon of Kathak dance followed by easy to follow exercises. The first DVD is fine for absolute beginners; the lessons of the second are definately more intricate and you need a good portion of practice to follow them. So I recommend them for the beginner and the intermediate level. Buy them from here, if you live in the US, or directly from India, if you do not mind to receive them a little bit later saving on the price. Have fun practising!

Mail from India

Yesterday the package arrived.. I had been waitig for it so eagerly! this instrument, that came from India to me (Thank you Robert!!) is a Sunadamala Lahara, and is a practise aid for tabla players and... Kathak dancers. It is a metronome, and you have not only the beats, but also a simple melody (lahara) over a beat circle (taal).
So I hope to improve my footwork (tatkar) with much practice and also my students will benefit from this new instrument, which gives the rhythm much more precisely than me ;-)

Weekend in Kathak

On the picture you can see my ancle bells - I have just arrived from two wonderful days of private lessons with my Kathak teacher, Molly Roy Chowdhoury. She comes twice a year from Calcutta to the small German town of Fürth, where she teaches dancing students from all Germany the venerable art of the classiscal Indian dance form Kathak. I study with her since 2006. This time we practiced a Guru Vandana and a Krishna Vandana - two "pantomimic" pieces, where the dancer shows her veneration for her teacher - guru - and secondly describes the beauty of the young Krishna.
I really appreciated the patience of my teacher - thank you from my heart, Molly!