Kathak Dance Classes (Nrityangana Kala Manch By Vaishali Bhattacharya)

Kathak Dance Classes (Nrityangana Kala Manch By Vaishali Bhattacharya)
11th Ave, Gaur City 2, Greater Noida, Ghaziabad, Uttar Pradesh 201301, India
http://nrityanganakm.com/
Nrityangana Kala Manch, founded and personally guided by Kathak exponent Vaishali Bhattacharya, is a dedicated sanctuary for the classical North Indian dance style set on the leafy lanes of Kolkata’s Lake Gardens. Since 2003 the studio has welcomed learners from age four to seventy-four, tethering every heartbeat to the cyclical rhythm of the tabla and the shimmering弧线 of ghungroos. The façade is deceptively modest—one turns off a busy artery, crosses a jasmine-scented garden, and climbs a narrow staircase into a lofted hall whose pale-teak floor bears the polish of thousands of foot-slides. Sunlight slants through latticed jharokhas, turning the room into a living rangoli while old photographs of Birju Maharaj and Sitara Devi line the ochre walls like guardian spirits.

Classes follow a tiered system. Beginners spend the first months learning tatkar footwork and hastak hand-grammar on bare feet before the ghungroos are ceremonially tied during an evening of diyas and kesari pedas. Intermediate students add chakkar drills—twenty-four spins executed on the eighth beat without dislodging the tilak on the forehead—while senior batches study abhinaya under Vaishaliji’s microscopic eye: the exact tilt of an eyebrow when Radha feigns anger, the precisely delayed laggi where a lover’s breath is suspended mid-air. Theory is never neglected; every Tuesday evening the hall converts into a seminar space where one hears archived Dagar gharana recordings or deciphers old Lucknow court chronicles on thumri etiquette.

Vaishaliji’s training credentials are exhaustive—she is a disciple of Pandit Birju Maharaj at Kathak Kendra Delhi and later polished her abhinaya under Shovana Narayan. Yet she insists on receding her aura to foreground the student. Voice notes of a teenage girl practicing sixteen-step tihais arrive at 1 a.m.; retired doctors are coaxed into a final aramandi squat in defiance of arthritic knees. Annual examinations tied to Prayag Sangeet Samiti certificates are optional; far more coveted is the summer soiree under neem trees where family and strangers gather on dhurries to watch tiny rebels perform tarana on car-horns, then surrender to Vrindavan bhajans under lantern stars.

The difference lies in scholarship married to bhakti. Every six weeks the class hosts ekanki vyakhyan evenings—scholars, percussionists, and even a veteran tabla-pakhawaj maker are invited to deconstruct the mathematics or the myth behind a composition. Students therefore leave not merely as performers, but as guardians of a culture that Vaishaliji insists must live beyond concert prosceniums—in subway rhythms, in the syncopated clack of a mother’s rolling pin, in every receding echo of gidha-gidha-dha.

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