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 Navarupa: A celebration of the Goddess - Kate Macdonald e-mail: katetmacd@gmail.com Photos: Smiles photography / Sivarubin Sivalingam July 11, 2024 I am the Divine Feminine; all the radiant Gods coalesce in Me. - excerpted from the Devisuktam Stuti Mukerjee, the producer of Navarupa, was born into a Hindu Bengali family, and at a very early age was captivated by the excitement and devotion that characterize Durga Puja. After moving to Southern India, she witnessed another expression of this reverence for the Mother Goddess in the Navaratri celebrations.  Stuti Mukherjee Stuti: Being a feminist by nature, I wanted to artistically convey a celebration of the divine feminine and womanhood through my artwork. This idea gave birth to Navarupa in Ottawa. On May 12th, Stuti's idea became a reality. By sheer coincidence, this was also Mother's Day! As I headed out to the Shenkman Arts Centre in Orleans, spring was definitely in the air. What more appropriate way to celebrate Mother's Day than in witnessing the nine forms of the Goddess made visible by nine dancers through five different styles of Indian classical dance? Stuti: I never saw Navarupa as a solo dance project. Capturing the nine manifestations of the Divine Mother Goddess required something larger. My vision was to create Navarupa collaboratively with nine distinct first-generation South Asian artists of colour. I really wanted to empower our community. Navarupa succeeded in bringing the community together at the 500-seat Harold Shenkman Hall. The fully-serviced performance venue equipped with state-of-the-art acoustics and lighting, was filled to near capacity.  Aishwarya Vijaykumar  Radhika Pillai The event got underway with exquisitely choreographed presentations from "the next generation": Kalagriha School of Performing Arts, Sadhana School of Indian Arts and Prashanti School of Dance under the direction of, respectively, Stuti Mukherjee, Aishwarya Vijaykumar, and Radhika Pillai. The opening performances left us with every assurance that the next generation of Indian classical dance in the nation's capital is in excellent hands. Stuti: Training the next generation of Indian classical dancers involves more than just teaching adavu techniques and choreography; it's about introducing students to Indian culture, heritage, tradition, and history. It requires discipline, physical strength, flexibility, stamina, endurance, and, most importantly, patience. It's a rigorous process that cannot be rushed. Another critical aspect of training kids is to create platforms to showcase their talent in this part of the world. Stuti, an accomplished Bharatanatyam exponent, is committed to life-long learning. She is currently studying Kuchipudi under the guidance of Kasi Aysola, a dance artist who, in 2014, co-founded the innovative Prakriti Dance.  Kasi Aysola Kasi opened the next section of the program with Ananda Tandavam, invoking Lord Nataraja's blissful dance, in company with the Goddesses Parvati and Ganga. Accompanied by Brahma on nattuvangam, and Vishnu on mridangam, Lord Siva's ḍamaru reverberated throughout the hall!  Nishita Alex  Vishakha Ghosh This celestial musical ensemble evoked by Kasi/Natarāja provided the perfect segue to acclaimed Carnatic vocalist Divya Iyer, who was accompanied by Dr. Anjana Srinivasan on violin, and Luxmanan on mridangam. The ensemble regaled the audience with pieces that evoked Devi Chamundeshwari, Devi Saraswati, and Devi Lakshmi. Various aspects of the latter's beauty were celebrated in song with the invitation to confer blessings upon us by entering our homes with her jingling anklets. The next part of the show offered the rasikas, darshan of the Divine as the dancers conjured successive images of the Goddess: the fish-eyed Goddess Meenakshi, Devi Durga as Katyayani, Devi Saraswati as the mother goddess Matangi, Goddess Adishakti as the fierce Ma Chamunda, Mookambika Devi flanked by Saraswati and Mahalakshmi, Ma Kali manifesting her infinite compassion, her neck garlanded with human skulls, and Devi Alarmelmanga who could not contain her urge to dance!  Producing a show of this scope is a gargantuan feat. Stuti worked ceaselessly to make her dream of Navarupa materialize. Securing funding in Ottawa for an enterprise of this magnitude is challenging, to say the least. There have been substantial cutbacks in arts funding and the competition for the money available is fierce. Stuti: I was very grateful to receive the Articipate grant, the City of Ottawa's Seed award, as well as support from the Shenkman Arts Centre. In addition, I would like to acknowledge the sponsors who came forward to provide additional funding: the Kabir Centre of Arts in Montreal, Realtor Biju George, the Isha Foundation, MP Chandra Arya, the Raju-Richstone family, Dr. Anuj Bhargav, Supriya Bhargav, the Mahal Tanjore restaurant, and the Ottawa Sivan Temple. The learning curve when producing a first show in the city - and one as ambitious as Navarupa - must necessarily be steep. There are so many elements to put into place. Anyone who has attempted such a task would concur! Stuti: I have a long list of things that could have been better in Navarupa. I learned the importance of having backups for every task, the importance of delegating, the importance of staying calm when things went wrong - and the importance of never giving up. With the support of the Goddess, there's always a way... You might say that Stuti and her team, with their hard work, created a container. It was there, ready and waiting, but empty - until the Goddess, in the guise of the artists, filled that emptiness with swirling, sacred energy. This rasika was blessed to experience moments of transcendent bliss and power during Navarupa. As the artists advanced to take their bow together in the concluding moments of the event, flowers fluttered gracefully from the heights of the stage, a final blessing from the Goddess. We look forward to seeing what new magic Stuti and the Goddess will weave in the future! I breathe forth like the wind, bringing into being all the worlds... I arose as unquantifiable, expansive joy! - excerpted from the Devisuktam Many thanks to the artists who made Navarupa a reality: Stuti Mukherjee, Divyalakshmi Iyer, Dr. Anjana Srinivasan, Luxmanan Wakisan, Radhika Pillai, Nishita Alex, Ragamallika Mohanraj, Vishakha Ghosh, Swathi Sreedharan, Anita Pandey, Aishwarya Vijaykumar, and Kasi Aysola.  Kate Macdonald is a retired English teacher who discovered the joy of Bharatanatyam 3 years ago at age 62. Her Guru Supratim Talukder of Kolkata, believes that learning can happen at any age. She loves to investigate and report on Indian classical dance in Ottawa, Ontario, Canada, where this exquisite art is flourishing. |
