CHOREOGRAPHER URJA DESAI THAKORE DISCUSSES HER NEW SHOW KATTAM KATTI
ACCLAIMED Kathak maestro Urja Desai Thakore has put her own unique stamp on the British dance landscape with eye-catching performances, powerful productions, terrific national tours, and cool choreography that adds an extra dimension to the classical repertoire.
Now that theatres are back open again, the founder and artistic director of Milton Keynes-based Pagrav Dance Company returns with her latest offering Kattam Katti, which she has choreographed and created.
The colourful new show performed by four talented UK-based dancers and four live musicians is inspired by the chaos, colour and competition of India’s world famous Uttarayan kite festival. The individual stories illustrate the highs, lows, loves and losses of a joyous but ruthlessly competitive festival, which becomes a metaphor for divisions and inequality throughout the world today. The show is currently being previewed and will have its official world premiere at London’s Sadler’s Wells theatre in November.
Eastern Eye caught up with Urja Desai Thakore to discuss her dance journey, new show Kattam Katti, its key messages and being back in front of an audience post-pandemic.
Urja Desai Thakore
How do you look back on your journey in dance?
It has been an incredibly interesting journey. I have encountered a lot of obstacles, challenges and really good times. It has certainly been a mixed bag but if asked, I would definitely do all of this again. I would probably avoid some of the mistakes, but I have learned an awful lot from all my experiences. Everything I’ve experienced has shaped me the way I think and the way I create today.
What led towards the creation of Kattam Katti?
Nina Head (who was creative producer for the company at that time) and I were having one of our regular brainstorming sessions. I was talking around a few different ideas I was interested to explore. When I started talking about the kites and the Uttarayan Festival, it really resonated with me. I had a strong urge to visualise my thoughts. I thought it would be really challenging for me to create something that is witty as well as having strong choreography, alongside the underlying tension of the festival.
Had you done something like this before?
I had never done anything like this before, which made it a challenge in itself. It was really interesting for me to see how, despite not liking the festival of kites all that much, I could explore what it is I don’t like and think about aspects of it I do like. I was able to dissect it to find all those multiple layers that informed the show.
Tell us about the production?
I first began thinking about it in January 2018. We were supposed to present the work in May 2020, which of course had to be postponed due to Covid. The first stage of research and development explored the approach and overall vision of the work, with the second looking at the various layers and experimenting with styles and choreography to see what was working and what wasn’t. Then we got down to creating the production with dancers and musicians to turn all our findings and work into a final show
How does this compare to other works you have choreographed and created?
Kattam Katti is very different from any of my previous work. On reflection, each of my previous pieces come from individual episodes of my life but this combines observations from several episodes that have taken place around me. This is the first time I have used an interactive set. Sets I used in the past were either static or not quite as essential to the choreography as they might have been. I was really keen to use musicians in a different way to other classical dance performances.
Tell us about that?
I wanted to incorporate them into the action as much as possible, as well as highlighting their musical skills. This is the first time I have used live musicians as performing bodies and in Kattam Katti they are a very integral part of the work.
What is the key message you want to convey with this piece?
Hope. I feel the piece really talks about the hope, positivity, and resilience we have as human beings, which seems especially relevant in the present day. I also want to convey feelings of togetherness and humour in the chaos of the world we live in.
What inspires you as a choreographer?
Everything! I get inspired by nature, patterns, conversations, literature, and music. I am very open to an acceptance of the things around me and always like to challenge myself and any of my previous perceptions. This often leads me to new findings, and I find that very inspiring. I also like to look at what I consider to be really bad work, so that I can ensure I don’t do things which I personally dislike.
How much does it mean to you that theatres are reopening, and people can enjoy live dance again?
Relief, excitement, and a sense that we are getting there. We have been talking about solidarity and I think this symbolises it. I am really excited that theatres are finally open to full capacity again and that we will be able to watch live art and performance in the way that they should be presented.
How do you feel before a new piece you have created premieres?
Always both excited and anxious. For this show, it has taken us almost three and a half years to get to this point, where we can present the work to the public, and feel really excited about doing so. In the present situation, also anxious, as I hope that everything can go ahead with no pandemic-caused setbacks.
What does dance mean to you today?
Oneness, everything. Dance is who I am today. It’s my existence and lifeline.
Why should we all watch Kattam Katti?
You need to see the show to know the answer. I think the work is a singular and one of a very unique kind. It is performed by all British-born dancers and musicians of Asian descent. I believe that Kattam Katti shows the extraordinary level of Indian classical dance in this country. I hope it is something that everyone of all ages and backgrounds can relate to, and that audiences will laugh, dance and fight with the performers.
Kattam Katti by Pagrav Company has preview performances at Bedford University Theatre (October 20) and Watford Palace Theatre (November 12). Its world premiere performances will be at London’s Sadler’s Wells on November 18 and 19, with a further performance at Folkestone Quarterhouse on November 25. Kattam Katti will undertake further UK touring in 2022.
www.pagravdance.com & www.sadlerswells.com
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A seated Jain enlightened teacherAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Ganesha from JavaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
A Chinese silk painting depicting the BuddhaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
ArdhanarishvaraAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Head of a grimacing yakshaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
NagaAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
The Bimaran casketAshmolean Museum, University of Oxford
Hunia Chawla
A still from rehearsal
Them performing liveNajmuddin Saifuddin Qawwal Group
The cast of Marriage Material in key moments from the play, including Avita Jay, Kiran Landa, Omar Malik, Irfan Shamji and Anoushka Deshmukh
Sathnam Sanghera’s 'Marriage Material' adapted into bold new play on conformity
The play Marriage Material at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre is Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti’s adaptation of Sathnam Sanghera’s novel of the same name, which first came out in 2013.
She is lucky to have Iqbal Khan direct Marriage Material. The play, a co-production with the Birmingham Rep, is set in the late 1960s. Mr and Mrs Bains (played by Jaz Singh Deol and Avita Jay) run a corner shop in Wolverhampton. Their younger daughter, Surinder (Anoushka Deshmukh), is 16, her sister Kamaljit (Kiran Landa) is just a bit older.
They have a neighbour, Patwant Dhanda (Irfan Shamji), who, as we shall soon see, is not a very pleasant man. In fact, he comes across just as racist as Enoch Powell, who represented Wolverhampton South West for the Tories from 1950 to 1974.
It will be recalled this was a time when Sikhs working on the buses were told they couldn’t wear a turban. That was a hard-fought battle that had to be won.
The Bains, meanwhile, simply want to get their girls married off.
Nothing new here, I thought.
What makes the tale different is that the plot twists and turns down the generations. Mr Dhanda, who has the makings of a paedophile, makes a pitch for one of the girls when Mr Bains dies early in the play. “A life with no man in the house is no life,” he informs the newly widowed Mrs Bains.
Mr Dhanda has a wife but she has returned to India so he considers himself to be a free man.
Surinder’s English teacher from school, Miss Flanagan (Celeste Dodwell), who is also head of the fifth form, tells Mrs Bains about her daughter: “I don’t want to embarrass you, but she is bright. Ridiculously bright.”
She adds: “Mrs Bains, I think it would be a pity if Surinder didn’t stay on at school.” The initial response from Mrs Bains is not encouraging: “Too much education makes people’s brains get mixed up, they don’t sleep at night…”
But she is finally persuaded that Surinder should be allowed to stay on for a while longer before being married off.
Mr Bains was very old school. When Surinder confides she would one day like to be “a somebody”, he is amused that “my daughter wants to be a somebody”.
“Like you,” she tells her father.
Mr Bains consoles his daughter: “We will find a somebody for you to marry.”
At the point of a possible marriage, however, Surinder is sweet-talked by chocolate salesman Jim Wilson (Tommy Belshaw) into running away with him. They share a love of literature, and he calls her “Sue Bains”. But the relationship does not end well.
Once she has left, Surinder is written off as “dead” by her family. The story that is circulated is that she was only 16 when she was killed in a car crash. That’s better than to let on that she ran off with a white man.
By the time she is reconciled with her sister towards the end of the play, a great deal has changed. Kamaljit married Tanvir Banga (Omar Malik), a young man who helped out in the Bains’ corner shop. When the two sisters meet again, Tanvir has also died. But he and Kamaljit had a son, Arjan Banga (Jaz Singh Deol doubles up for this role after the death of Mr Bains). He has come home after his father’s death to help his mother who is still running the family corner shop.
Meanwhile, Mr Dhanda’s business has prospered. He now has a son, Ranjit Dhanda (the role is taken by Omar Malik after Tanvir’s death), and he is nearly as unpleasant as his father.
Arjan has an English fiancée, Claire (Celeste Dodwell). In London, Arjan worked as a creative director. But after deciding to stay in Wolverhampton to help his mother, he decides he cannot marry Claire because she is white. In other words, Asians are not free of racism, either. Happily, at the end, the couple are reconciled.
As for Surinder, she parted company with Jim Wilson after realising he was all talk, depended on her for money and had failed to earn a penny from his literary pretensions. She had prospered, though, as a hotel owner and had been transformed in time into a well-groomed businesswoman. After being tracked down by Arjan, she decides to return to her roots in Wolverhampton and help Kamaljit run the family corner shop. Perhaps 50 years had passed during the passage of the play.
Being subjected to racism turned some Asians into racists themselves. The word goreh (white person) is repeatedly spat out with venom. Maybe it is worth remembering the play’s audience isn’t exclusively Asian – white folk are watching as well. And maybe some of the toilet humour ridiculing white people, which always makes me cringe, could be cut out.
In Sanghera’s novel, there is a quote from Enoch Powell’s speech in November 1968: “The West Indian or Asian does not, by being born in England, become an Englishman. In law he becomes a United Kingdom citizen by birth; in fact, he is a west Indian or an Asian still... he will by the very nature of things have lost one country without gaining another, lost one nationality without acquiring a new one. Time is running out against us and them. With the lapse of a generation or so we shall at last have succeeded – to the benefit of nobody – in reproducing ‘in England’s green and pleasant land’ the haunting tragedy of the US.”
In Marriage Material, where the acting is marvellous (apart from Mr Dhanda’s Indian mannerisms and accent being overdone) we do travel across a couple of generations.
There is a scene when Tanvir rejects Mr Dhanda’s vision of creating a little Punjab in Wolverhampton.
Mr Dhanda wants to take over the Bains’ corner shop and is putting pressure on Tanvir to sign the papers. He says: “In this country, money is the path to freedom.”
“Sign, please,” he instructs Tanvir. “We must make sure our children learn to behave nicely, according to our rules.”
He insists: “We maintain our identity so we can be ourselves.”
Tanvir disagrees: “We can be us here. With the goreh.”
Dhanda warns him: “Then we will be inviting chaos.”
Tanvir’s comment is telling: “You sound like Enoch.”
Kamaljit, who is expecting a baby with her husband Tanvir, says: “I would like my child to grow up knowing the history of the Gurus and to read the Granth Sahib. And to love their culture.”
Tanvir tells his wife: “I would like my child to go to the finest schools, to cheer for England in the World Cup and eat Yorkshire pudding on a Sunday.”
Kamaljit sets out a dream that has perhaps come to pass with many third and fourth generation British Asians: “Maybe our child can do both.” Much, much later, in a throwback to the past, we learn of Surinder’s O-level results: “Biology A, Chemistry A, English Language A, English Literature A, French A, History B, Latin A, Mathematics A, Physics A…”
Kamaljit tells her younger sister: “Never mind about the B.”
And that is quintessentially Asian. Their acting is outstanding.
Marriage Material is at the Lyric Hammersmith Theatre until June 21, and at the Birmingham Rep from June 25-July 5