View source for Farooq Chaudhry

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[[Category:India |K ]]
[[Category:Dance |K ]]
[[Category:UK |K ]]
[[Category:Pakistan |K ]]

=A brief profile=
[https://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/sunday-times/meet-the-british-pakistani-who-reimagined-kathak/articleshow/53469645.cms  Malini Nair, July 31, 2016: ''The Times of India'']

Farooq Chaudhry, a Londoner of Pak origin, has helped a bunch of young and talented dancers put Kathak on the world map.At a dance studio in Delhi, Farooq Chaudhry is watching the birth pangs of a dance on life and death.

Aditi Mangaldas’s next production, Interrupted, is opening in Mumbai next weekend before travelling to Europe, and there are agonizing doubts on whether the ephemeral ideas are actually coming through on the dance floor."We need more lyrical, softer moments. The solo at the end was beautiful, and we need more of those emotions. Don’t overanalyze. Okay?" says 56-year-old Chaudhry.With some of the most successful dance projects in the world to his credit, Chaudhry’s inputs are considered invaluable. He is a dramaturg, a mentor, a creative editor, a producer, and the man who ensures that the dance says what it set out to. You could call him a dancer’s personal critic."It is my job to stand back and ask questions - about the choreography, the music, the costume. The choices a dancer makes are very subconscious, and I have to play the conduit between her and the audience. I have to, in fact, help the dancer make sense to herself, before she does to the audience," he says.

This job works entirely on instinct. But it is clearly one he excels in. Chaudhry is the cultural entrepreneur who put Kathak whiz Akram Khan on the world stage and turned him into a cross-cultural phenomenon. He has mentored Aakash Odedra to stardom across the dance circuits of Europe and is now working with young Kathak dancer Sanjukta Sinha, besides Mangaldas.If Kathak is enjoying a huge surge of popularity in the West, especially Europe, the credit for much of it goes to Chaudhry. On an average evening, a Londoner looking to catch a dance performance could pick Kathak as easily as ballet, modern dance, salsa or tango off the Time Out listings.There is a new international movement in Kathak, somewhat like what happened to Bharatanatyam 15 years ago. "I think it is just one of those moments in time when everything comes together for an art form. This wave is open to contemporary interpretations. Akram took some risks to make it globally interesting and now there is a market for these experiments," says Chaudhry. "Also, it is a time when Asian talent is exploding in Europe, look at sculptor Anish Kapoor and musician Nitin Sawhney. It is like a class of genius."Alternate Kathak is increasingly finding audiences in India as well. In 2002, when Khan staged Kaash, Chaudhry recalls that the hall was full with 'wealthy, starchy' folks. The last two tours the dancer did in India in recent years, the path-breaking Gnosis and Torobaka with flamenco master Israel Galvan, played to a heavy turnout of dance lovers."The world is falling in love with these dancers. But sometimes they have to be loved outside before they are loved at home," he says.Born in Pakistan, Chaudhry’s own fascination for Kathak started as a youngster watching his sister Nigat under Kathak guru Nahid Siddiqui. He trained in modern dance too but retired from the field in 1998 to explore the idea of creating an alternate career - as an arts manager, a completely barren territory in India till date.Uninspired by the jaded dance scene of the time, Chaudhry was looking for some offbeat work when he first saw Khan dance. "He took a strong classical system and gave it a breath of fresh air," he says. The two set up the Akram Khan Dance Company and went on to create memorable productions using the Kathak idiom, the latest being Karthika Nair’s work, Until the Lions. So successful, commercially and critically, has been this collaboration that it has created a momentum for other Kathak dancers.There is a reason why Kathak lends itself more easily to the modern dance idiom. It is not as stylized, structured or convention-bound as other Indian classical dances, and is often referred to as khula naach. The willingness to rebel is particularly pronounced in dancers who have learnt under or are hugely influenced by the radical Kathak diva Kumudini Lakhia - and not surprisingly all the dancers Chaudhry now works with have been associated with her."She is an amazing woman, the first modernist in Kathak. And there is this great creative cross-fertilization between her students and followers in India and the West - Aakash with Sanjukta, Akram with Aditi, Akram with Aakash. It is creating a community of Kathak artistes who support each other," he points out.The job of a dance producer or dramaturg is evidently tricky. You don’t want to strangle the voice of the dancer but help her refine it.

The veto still rests with the choreographer. So the work involves a lot of listening, talking and watching the uncut choreography. "Dancers are lonely people, they need someone to bounce off ideas," he says.He admits that he has sometimes been brutal. "I may have been too forceful with Akram once. Gnosis was a game-changer but it had to be reimagined just days before it opened. There was 30 seconds of what you see in the original. But now I raise a question and leave it open, just triggering the thought," he says.What’s new about neo kathak

-Takes in influences from modern dance, martial arts and yoga

-Instead of sringara as a thematic base; grief, rage, angst more common

-Contemporary or abstract themes. Even traditional dance texts reimagined

-Often works with unconventional music

-Avoids exaggerated facial abhinaya, it is kept muted and contained