News: L.A. Tap Festival

By: Parimal M. Rohit WP

August 9, 2009

Pandit Chitresh Das will be visiting Southern California on Tuesday for a unique rare performance at the L.A. Tap Festival here at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy, where the esteemed Indian classical dancer will be doing a collaborative cross-cultural effort with one of the world’s most renowned Western artists.

In what is considered the ultimate meeting of eastern and western dance, Das will be joining forces with Jason Samuels Smith in what will be considered a rare combination of Indian classical and American modern dance styles.

The collaboration will be a rare combination of Kathak, an Indian classical dance Das has dedicated most of his life to, and tap dancing, an art form where Smith brings a unique, youthful energy.

It’s been a budding collaboration that has been five years in the making. It was back in 2004 when these two apparently diametrically opposed dancers found a happy medium to jointly express their unique art forms as a collective whole. It was at the American Dance Festival that year where both dancers crossed paths. There, the dances of tap, flamenco and kathak were all featured.

Smith and Das were slated in separate dances, but Das noticed Smith as he was practicing his tap performance back stage. As Das observed Smith’s steps, the Indian dance was soon able to mimic each of the American dancer’s moves, even though the Kathak artist has zero background in tap dancing and no formal training in the Western footwork-based art.

Just like that, the two connected. In fact, the two dancers, who are 37 years apart in age, connected so well that they just had to hit the stage together at the finale of the American Dance Festival as a team, doing a rendition of Eastern and Western dance probably never seen before.

Since then, both have worked together to educate the world about their opposing yet oddly similar dance forms. More than anything, the message both hope to reveal by working together is that it is not impossible to find common ground while appreciating each other’s differences, no matter how different two people may be.

“What these artists are trying to say is you don’t have to change who you are and change your art form, and collaboration sometimes works best when both art forms are in their truest form,” Rina Mehta, a member of the Chitresh Das Dance Company, told Buzzine about the union of Das and Smith. “You get to see how this art forms, even though they are different; there is a place they can come together.”

She added that despite the apparent differences between Kathak and tap dancing, in reality, there are more similarities among the dance forms than most realize.

“Both dances are improvisatory art forms and both are rhythmic,” she said of the dynamic and entertaining performances rendered by Das and Smith since 2005. Yet, most importantly, Mehta says the collaborative venture, which is not fusion, is symbolic of how two diverse and apparently opposite groups can coexist as one without changing the spirit of either entity. Ultimately, she believes such a union between Kathak and tap dancing can help inspire change and open the door to more attempts of unified joint efforts, both within other forms of dance and with other issues in the bigger picture or life at large.

“Not only does it entertain and inspire, but it also shows how one can challenge boundaries and norms,” Mehta said, pointing out that Das is 64 years old and grew up in “old-school India” and yet still was able to come together with Smith, who is a contemporary 27-year-old dancer raised on the streets of Harlem.

“It’s a model of how cross-cultural collaboration can happen and how art can be a vehicle for how different cultures can come together.”

With that, for 90 minutes on Tuesday evening, both Smith and Das will take the stage and show the audience – and the world – exactly how they are able to be as one, despite their very different backgrounds.

The only non-tapper to perform at the L.A. Tap Festival this week, Das and Smith will perform their special performance on Tuesday evening at 7:30 p.m. at the Debbie Allen Dance Academy. It is Das’s second performance at the festival.

The festival actually starts today and runs through Friday. For more information about Tuesday’s special performance with Smith and Das, visit the festival’s website or the Chitresh Das Dance Company website.