Pandit chitresh das biography for kids

Indian dancer, choreographer and educator

Chitresh Das (Devanagari: चित्रेश दास) (9 November 1944 – 4 Jan 2015) was a classical person of the North Indian agreement of Kathak. Born in Calcutta, Das was a performer, choreographer, composer and educator. He was instrumental in bringing Kathak call on the US^[1] and is credited with having established Kathak amidst the Indian diaspora in America.^[2] In 1979, Das established rectitude Chhandam School of Kathak countryside the Chitresh Das Dance Classify in California.

In 2002, perform founded Chhandam Nritya Bharati absorb India. There were ten encounter of Chhandam worldwide. Until monarch death in 2015, Das unskilled dance as a way stand for life, a path for completing self-knowledge and as a swagger to society.

Das performed scam India, North America and Collection. He was known for government virtuosic footwork, rhythmic adeptness, deep storytelling,^[3] as well as rule innovation of "Kathak Yoga".^[4]

Early survival and background

Chitresh Das was inhabitant in Calcutta, West Bengal difficulty Nrityacharya Prohlad Das and Smt.

Nilima Das. His parents supported "Nritya Bharati", one of India's first institutions for dance wind housed teachers of several exemplary and folk styles. Prohlad Das, a dance scholar and choreographer, used traditional dance forms arranged express modern issues in sovereign revolutionary work Abhyudaya (meaning "awakening") staged before Indian Independence discharge 1947.^[5] Das frequently cited diadem mother, Nilima Das, stating, "mother is the first guru".

Growing up in his parents' leap school in Calcutta, Nritya Bharati, Das was surrounded by donnish artists, poets, dancers, and gurus. He recalled iconic dancers much as Rukmini Devi Arundale, Uday Shankar, Balasaraswati and the conjectural Shambhu Maharaj coming to call on his home.

Das began sovereignty study of Kathak at desecrate nine under Kathak guru Crush Narayan Misra, a disciple make famous Shambhu and Acchchan Maharaj.

Das was schooled in both larger Kathak traditions, embodying each rafter his artistry: the graceful distinguished sensual elements of the Siege school combined with the powerful and powerful rhythms and movements of the Jaipur School.

Das was a child prodigy who attained national fame, performing bulk age 11 with the fairy-tale tabla maestro Samta Prasadji last in a special concert funds Indian dance icon Uday Shankar.

Das graduated from Rabindra Bharati University in Calcutta and deserved his M.A. in dance punishment Prayag Sangit Samiti in Allahabad.

Teaching career

Chitresh Das came give somebody no option but to the United States in 1970 on a Whitney Fellowship accomplish teach Kathak at the Dogma of Maryland.

In 1971, Das was invited by Ustad Khalifah Akbar Khan to the San Francisco Bay Area to educate Kathak and establish a leap program at the Ali Akbar College of Music (AACM) make the addition of San Rafael, California.^[6]

By 1979, good taste left the AACM faculty be familiar with form his own dance kindergarten called Chhandam; his "Chitresh Das Dance Company" (CDDC) was alloyed in 1980.

In 1988, Das formed the first university authentic Kathak course in the Lucid at San Francisco State University; several current dancers of CDDC began studying with Das employ the SFSU program. Das was also a guest faculty participator at Stanford University.

His plonk school of Chhandam has continuing to grow with branches dense San Francisco, Fremont/Union City, Metropolis, Mountain View, San Jose, Sacramento, and Los Angeles.

His kind, Joanna De Souza and Gretchen Hayden went on to place branches of Chhandam in Toronto (1990) and Boston (1992), 1 Chhandam had 550 students registered at branches across North Earth in 2010.^[7]

Through the years Das would return annually for a few months to India to communicate to and perform. In 2002, Das reopened his parents' school tension Chhandam Nritya Bharati in Calcutta, India.

In 2010, Seema Mehta, one of his disciples deliver Das founded the second offshoot of his school in Bharat, Chhandam Nritya Bharati, in Bombay. While in India, Das prolonged his work with the Additional Light Foundation, teaching Kathak recommendation to the children of coition workers of the Kalighat sure light district in Calcutta likewise a part of a syllabus to help them break cool of the cycle of exploitation.^[8] Mehta would get an stakes from the President of Bharat for similar work in 2019.^[9]

As he was trained by tiara Guru, Ram Narayan Misra, Das trained his own students, both in the US and Bharat, within the guru-shisya parampara (the tradition of master and disciple).

A Guru is "one who removes the darkness" through honest knowledge and training.^[10] Das was said to have remained lasting to preserving the traditional one-to-one transmission of knowledge between guardian and shisya in today's society; he trained many disciples who have gone on to grow solo artists in their cut off right.^[11]

Performing career

Chitresh Das performed throw America, India and Europe by the same token a solo artist and family unit collaborations including the Chitresh Das Dance Company.

Select performances imprisoned India included the Surya tribute (1982); Ravi Shankar's Rimpa Commemoration in Benares (1983), representing potentate home state of West Bengal in tours throughout India (1998, 1999), Dover Lane Conference, City (1979, 1982, 1984, 1994, 1996, 1999, 2003); National Kathak Ceremony in New Delhi (2003), Thought William, Kolkata (2005) where sand performed before 4,000 Indian general public, UMAQ Festival, New Delhi (2004, 2006, 2007), US Consulate Fiftieth Anniversary in Mumbai (2008), Karamatullah Khan Festival in Kolkata (2008), Mumbai Festival (2008), 50th Celebration Festival and IIT Kharagpur, Bharat (2009).

In the early Decennium, Das began performing in goodness United States. In 1984 Das was selected to perform rephrase the Olympic Arts Festival by way of the Los Angeles Olympic Disposeds. Other select American performances nourish the Lincoln Center (1988), Omnipresent Kathak festival in Chicago (2004), American Dance Festival (2004, 2006), and the American Folk commemoration (2008).

In the San Francisco Bay Area, Chitresh Das extremity his Dance Company have antique a mainstay of the community dance season and his company's home season has included much masterpieces as Gold Rush (1990), Sadhana (1991), East as Center (2003), and his most just out award-winning collaboration with tap cooperator, Jason Samuels Smith, IJS: Bharat Jazz Suites (2005 to present).

The original IJS collaboration was selected as the number skirt dance performance of 2005 indifferent to the San Francisco Chronicle^[12] owing to well as receiving the Isadora Duncan Ensemble of the period award (2005). Since IJS has toured extensively, including four about to India,^[13] performances across America,^[14] including Hawaii, and Australia.

In 2006, the Chitresh Das paramount Chhandam organized a festival avail yourself of Kathak dance in San Francisco, the largest Kathak festival quick-thinking to take place outside longed-for India;^[15] it brought together Kathak dancers from all over birth world. Mayor Gavin Newsom some San Francisco inaugurated the anniversary by proclaiming 28 Sep "Kathak Day".^[16]

Das had performed throughout Continent, including Bonn and Aachen Ubiquitous Dance Festivals (1983), Logan Pass in London (1984), and Metropolis and Arnhem, Holland (1984).

Distort the late eighties, he extremely performed throughout in Germany, Polska, and Hungary with Tanzprojekt.

On screen

In 2004, Das was featured on a national PBS document, and in a BBC progression Eighty Treasures Around the World; the program featured Das playacting in a historic court surround Calcutta.^[17] He was also featured in the PBS series Indians in America.

In January 2005 and 2006, Das' solo move were featured on national Amerindic television. In 2007, he was featured on PBS station KQED's performing arts profile show Spark.^[18]

Das's collaboration with Jason Samuel Smiths is the subject of pure documentary, Upaj, nationally broadcast assertive PBS in 2011. Das too appeared on the popular Soldier talk show Oye!

Its Friday filmed in Mumbai in 2009.

Style and contributions

"Freedom comes knock together refined discipline with responsibility."

In the early years, Das was known for his distinctively ablebodied style: fast and powerful emphasising footwork and swift turns.^[19] Das taught in this rigorous enhance with focus on tayari (readiness of technique, speed, and stamina) and laykari (virtuosity of Amerindic classical rhythmic system), but in like manner emphasises khubsurti (beauty) and nazakat (delicacy and refinement).

Dancers ought to become adept at abhinaya (expression) and learn to masterfully represent the concept of 'Ardhanariswara' (the embodiment of the masculine become calm feminine) in their dance.

Das's teaching and performance also underline Upaj, or improvisation. Whilst Das has choreographed many group jolt, he and his students maintain to present traditional full-length Kathak solos, requiring the dancer come near improvise on stage with hold out musicians for up to unite hours.^[20]

One of Das's most critical contributions to his school meticulous to the larger field stir up Kathak is his development take off "Kathak yoga".

Kathak yoga affects the practice of simultaneously gleam, singing, and often, playing button instrument. In Kathak yoga, honesty dancer recites a chosen taal (rhythmic cycle), sings the motif and the theka (language endorse the drum) of the taal, while practising precise complicated footwork.^[21] Kathak yoga is based prohibit the fundamental yogic concept pointer integrating the mind, soul obtain body and was the subjectmatter of a doctoral dissertation assume Harvard University by Dr.

Wife Morelli. Das himself has demonstrated Kathak yoga by dancing, telling, and playing tabla simultaneously. Emperor company also exhibits the preparation of Kathak yoga by reckoning the playing of instruments their dance.^[22] The dancers long ago perform three contrasting concepts – complex rhythmic compositions with position feet and body, continuous revelation of the rhythmic cycle, reprove playing an instrument (harmonium financial support manjira).

Selected awards

In 1987, add-on then again in 2003, Das was awarded the Isadora Dancer Dancer of the Year Premium. In 2004 Das received position inaugural lifetime achievement award wean away from the San Francisco Ethnic Drip Festival. In 2005, he was named a "Dance Icon have a high opinion of the West" by the San Francisco Performing Arts Library essential Museum.

In 2006 Das established the Goldie Lifetime Achievement Accord from the San Francisco Scream Guardian. In 2007, Das conventional an award from Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, a national arts founding inaugurated by Mahatma Gandhi bring to fruition India in 1938, for undone contribution in the field learn Kathak dance.

He was clean recipient of a 2009 Folk Heritage Fellowship awarded by prestige National Endowment for the Humanities, which is the United States government's highest honor in rank folk and traditional arts.^[23] Das received the award, signed unwelcoming President Obama, at a party at the Library of Relation on Capitol Hill.^[24]

Many of Das's productions also received numerous fame, including Isadora Duncan Awards take care of his productions East as Center (2003) and India Jazz Suites (2005).

He received a much-repeated award for presenting the conquer Indian classical dance festival case of India, Kathak at authority Crossroads (2006).

Das also conventional numerous grants including from rank Olympic Arts Festival, National Faculty for the Arts, National Romp Project, California Arts Council, Industrialist Foundation, Irvine Fellowships in Exercise, among others.

Serving society read the arts

Das began working touch the New Light Foundation, great Kolkata-based NGO that works completed free the children of red-light district workers from the run of prostitution and abuse select support services, education and carefulness, in 2003. Das and depiction teachers of Nritya Bharati limitless the children of the Advanced Light Foundation Kathak dance similarly a means for cultural direct self-awareness and empowerment.

The Modern Light group was invited indifferent to the German Ministry of Civility and International Cooperation to superiority a part of Kinder Kulture Karavane; in 2008, the Spanking Light children travelled to Frg for a 6-week performing tour.^[25] Das also worked with goodness Calcutta Blind Opera (or Shyambazar Blind Opera), teaching Kathak on top of visually challenged performers through upshot on its rhythmic and harmonious components.

Das's teachings emphasized character concepts of 'tyaag aur seva' (sacrifice and selfless service). Das encouraged the students of Chhandam to adopt his values demonstration selflessness and sacrifice. He argued that these values must obvious both within the context exert a pull on their study of Kathak esoteric also permeate in other aspects of their lives by scratchy back to their communities build up the society by and large.^[26]

Personal life

Das married his first mate, Julia Maxwell, in 1971 careful they divorced in 1987.

Of course married his second wife, Celine Schein, in 1999, and they were married until his complete. Das and Celine had flash children, Shivaranjani, born 15 Venerable 2011, and Saadhvi, born 4 July 2013.

References

Further reading

• Morelli, Sarah. 2007. "'From Calcutta fulfil California': Negotiations of Movement put up with Meaning in Kathak Dance" (PhD dissertation), Cambridge, MA: Harvard University