Ecstasy in expression: What to expect at the Khajuraho Dance Festival

Of Kings + Culture

A culturally rich and historic destination, Khajuraho is cradled by the Vindhya mountain range, which is of great significance in local mythology and history as it is believed to be the traditional boundary between north and south India. It has a plethora of natural attractions, including wonders like the Raneh Falls Canyon and Panna Tiger Reserve. However, if you consider yourself a rasika, an enlightened being in possession of rasa, a Sanskrit term referenced in the Upanishads that speak of essence, self-consciousness and quintessence, there is nowhere else in the world to be every February than Khajuraho.

Ever since it was founded in the ninth century by the Chandela kings, Khajuraho steadily added to its tally of temples, all of which became more imposing in size as well as stature. Today, architectural enthusiasts come from all corners of the globe to marvel at the stunning examples of classic Nagara-style architecture, identifiable by multiple towers (as opposed to single-towered Dravidian ones) called shikhara, which are further crowned by amaleks (horizontal fluted discs) and kalash (vases). It is said the plural vertical thrust of the shikhara is designed as a symbol of power. At the Chandela dynasty’s zenith, Khajuraho was believed to house at least 85 magnificent places of worship. Today, only about a quarter of the monuments remain.

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Established 49 years ago, the Khajuraho Dance Festival, held over a full week at the end of every February, is considered to be the preeminent celebration of classical Indian dance. Beyond the roll-call of the most esteemed exponents of Indian classical dance in the world, the setting also deserves special applause. Khajuraho’s temples are best divided into three broad categories: the Eastern, Southern and Western groups. The last group — the largest, most imposing and most important — is the site of the dance festival’s main performances itself.

Dancers have the unique privilege of performing before the Laxmana Temple, which dates back to AD930-950, while the largest and loftiest temple, the Kandariya Mahadev (1025-1050), forms what could be the most jaw-dropping backdrop, sharing a platform with the neighbouring early 11th-century Devi Jagadambi temple. In the course of a single dance, both performer and audience are transported back to the era when the Chandelas ruled over the Bundelkhand region, which was then known as Jejakabhukti, and when things were so glorious that local legend states Khajuraho got its name from two solid gold date palm trees (the Sanskrit name for date palms is kharjura) flanking the temple gates. Even the eminent 14th-century Moroccan scholar and explorer Ibn Battuta wrote about his time here in his memoirs, referring to the city as Kajarra.

Khajuraho’s golden allure, however, diminished with time, following numerous Mughal invasions between the 13th and 18th centuries, and particularly when Sikandar Lodi of the Delhi Sultanate began his protracted campaign of temple destruction. Thankfully, Khajuraho’s remoteness saved the majority of the sacred structures from widespread desecration by Muslim invaders but time and neglect soon became another enemy to reckon with, as jungle and vegetation slowly overgrew the temples. It was only in the 1830s that Khajuraho was rediscovered by British army captain T S Burt, who chanced upon the lost complex of temples while out surveying.

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The divine dance

The divine dance

It is perhaps only in India that dancers perform for the gods in a setting that is literally created for the gods themselves. Few other venues, not even the grand dance festival held in Konark, Odisha, bring dancers and rasikas in such close proximity to the ancient monuments. Applause must also be given to the culturally proactive government which generously opens the temple grounds at dusk so everyone, young and old, local or foreign, may immerse themselves night after night in an intoxicating cocktail of world-class dance, history and culture completely gratis.

Of late, contemporary dance has been included in the Khajuraho Dance Festival’s lineup, albeit as a fringe event and not part of the primary repertoires. The raison d’être of the festival is, of course, to celebrate the great classical dance forms of India whose roots are firmly embedded in the Natya Shastra, the 200 BCE Sanskrit treatise on the performing arts attributed to the sage Bharata Muni.

The Sangeet Natak Akademi, India’s national performing arts academy, presently recognises eight main dance forms: Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Satriya, Manipuri, Kathakali, Mohiniyattam and Odissi. Over the course of seven nights, guests may expect to see three to four performances each time, usually featuring any of the aforementioned eight styles. But beyond dance, workshops, film screenings, talks on arts and heritage and other cultural events, the hugely inclusive Khajuraho Dance Festival also encompassed other activities, ensuring something for everyone.

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This year’s mela, for example, comprised Hunnar Haat, an arts and crafts village in the style of an open-air bazaar. Local children enjoyed going around the festival grounds on Segways while foreign guests feasted on the array of Bundeli cuisine at the various stalls that sprouted up pre-performance every evening. Craft demonstrations, from weaving to pottery, were conducted and the local tourism council even offered a variety of adventure tourism options around Khajuraho, including camping in the Bear Valley Camp, walking with members of the local Pardi tribe at Panna National Park or water-rafting down the Ken and Chambal Rivers.

Glancing around, it is hard to imagine how Khajuraho could have ever been forgotten. But to those willing to look beyond the sensationalised erotica, Khajuraho is perhaps the perfect microcosm of what it means to live a beautiful existence — where divinity is part of your everyday and where the simple, natural acts of love and life are not just elevated to an art form but immortalised forever for future generations to learn from and treasure. Life, as we know, always goes on. May Khajuraho’s legacy endure likewise.

Diary of a Dancer

Principal dancer Geethika Sree shares snippets from Sutra Foundation’s recent triumphant staging of Jaya Ram at the 49th Khajuraho Dance Festival

DAY 1 We assembled at Sutra House in Titiwangsa, Kuala Lumpur before bussing over to KLIA. Some of the dancers’ parents sweetly come to send us off and it was, as always, a riot getting everyone’s boarding passes, their bags weighed and so on. Adding to the fun of this trip was the extra check-in baggage of a giant appliqué umbrella, part of our props for Jaya Ram, which we will be performing on the fourth night of the 49th Khajuraho Dance Festival. It was quite a trek to get to Khajuraho, involving two flights and an overnight stay in Delhi. Thankfully, the five-hour flight was uneventful and we were all just happy to be back in India again, and so soon after our last visit in December 2022 for the Delhi International Arts Festival.

DAY 2 After a quick breakfast at our cosy little hotel in the R K Puram residential district, most of us jumped at the opportunity to visit the Dilli Haat open-air arts and crafts bazaar run by the Delhi Tourism and Transportation Development Corporation for a quick spot of shopping before our teatime flight to Khajuraho. We were a little nervous initially as someone in the departure hall told us the once-daily flight had been delayed by over four hours the day before. But luckily, things were on schedule, and it was an easy 1½ hours to Khajuraho. All of us were excited as it was our first visit. Only Master Ramli (Ibrahim, founder of Sutra Foundation) and anneh Sivarajah (Natarajan, Sutra’s lighting and stage designer) had travelled here before, but even then, that was in 2003! Master mentioned having to make a long train journey, starting from Delhi’s Hazrat Nizamuddin Railway Station and stopping at the historic city of Jhansi before finally reaching. We were pleasantly surprised by the new and modern airport and it is a very quick bus ride to our hotel, the Bundela Resort, which we will call home for the week. As we arrived around 6pm, we had just enough time to change and rush over to Khajuraho’s main temple grounds, where the festival is held, and where the night’s first dances began, including a Kuchipudi performance by Sreelakshmy Govardhanan, Mohiniyattam by Methil Devika and troupe, and a particularly inspired Bharatanatyam from Vaibhav Arekar and his dancers. We couldn’t resist going backstage afterwards to congratulate them.

DAY 3 It was an early start to the day as we toured the famed Western group of temples as well as visited the site of the performance, taking in the vastness of the stage which we couldn’t inspect last night as the performances were already underway. A lot of the dancers were excited and nervous as the backdrop is historic, magnificent and completely awe-inspiring. We all considered ourselves lucky to be able to dance in such amazing locations. Master Ramli led us through most of the temples and pointed out the carvings that depict apsara dancers or sura sundari (celestial maidens) gracefully carved out of sandstone centuries ago. Upon exiting the temple complex, we discovered the Raja Café and immediately parked ourselves for refreshments. Most of us were content with hot cups of chai or cool lime sodas as our spot on the upper deck afforded us the most wonderful view of the temples. The younger dancers, however, happily tucked into banana shakes, chicken fingers and grilled cheese sandwiches. We returned to the hotel for a quick rest before going back to the festival grounds to catch the ancillary events, including the Choreolab-Layapravah and World Dance Alliance collaborative workshops starring the Nagi Contemporary Dance Corps from Singapore, Nachom Arts Foundation’s Meepao which offered a thoughtful twist on the Manipuri Meitei ritual of Lepao and a talk by Malaysia’s very own Prof Joseph Gonzales, who now heads the Hong Kong Academy for Performing Arts’ academic studies in dance. At night, we were treated to the Assamese classical dance of Satriya executed by Prateesha Suresh, followed by Himansee Katragadda and Arathi Nair in a Kuchipudi-Bharatanatyam duet and a rousing Kathak by the Kadamb Centre for Dance. We return to the hotel to eat a late supper quickly to maximise our rest time as it’s performance day tomorrow. Needless to say, excitement (and nervousness) was in the air.

DAY 4 It was another crack-of-dawn start as final rehearsals began in earnest. Although the days here are hot, dry and very sunny, it can be chilly in the mornings and the stage was wet with dew. Some of the dancers slipped while rehearsing but thankfully, no great harm was done. Once we were satisfied, we headed back to the hotel for a much-welcome breakfast of Bundelkhandi poha, a speciality of Madhya Pradesh, topped with aloo bhujia (crisp potato sticks). Like our recent tour of Odisha in November for the Konark Dance Festival, Sutra Foundation is once again honoured to be the only international troupe invited to perform on the main stage for the Khajuraho Dance Festival as well as be the opening performance for the night. Fellow senior dancer and dancing partner-in-crime Nishah Devi Govind Kumar, along with Tan Mei Mei, sums up the pre-performance jitters best by quipping: “To dance, you need a good amount of butterflies in your stomach.” All too soon, it’s showtime!

DAY 5 Thankfully, Master Ramli declared our performance of Jaya Ram to be a success and, although tired, there was no time to sleep in. Today was equally early as acclaimed photographer S Magendran, who is accompanying the Sutra tour, wanted to photograph us all in the temples while the light was still soft and the sun not too harsh, and, equally importantly, before the daily hordes of visitors arrived. Just as Sutra dancers have been immortalised before at Cambodia’s famed Bayon Temple in the heart of Angkor Thom and Konark’s Sun Temple, we were fortunate to have obtained permission from the archaeological authorities to do so in Khajuraho as well. Once Magen was satisfied, we wrapped up and quickly dashed back to the mela where Master Ramli gave a talk as part of the Kalavarta Dialogue on Art. Tonight, the evening began with the festival’s only Kathakali performance — a duet by Akash Mallick and Ruda Prasad Roy — and an inspired Odissi repertoire by the luminous Shashwati Garai Ghosh. We also made sure to stop by Nepathya beforehand, an interesting and informative exhibition on the costumes and components of Kathakali.

DAY 6 Today, slightly away from the Western temples and, again, before sunrise, Magen decided to photograph us at the Jain mandir this time. It was infinitely quiet and serene, save for the friendly chatter of a helpful caretaker who even arranged for a kettle of chai to be brought to us as we kept changing poses and positions. All these images will be part of Sutra’s enviable portfolio of photographs, which span the length and breadth of India’s temples, from Ellora to Hampi and Brihadisvara to Halebidu. It took a long time but what we saw on Magen’s camera had us all excited for the final results which he plans to showcase in an upcoming exhibition. As Master Ramli said, “It is never an easy matter to get good photographs and the creativity associated with photography is different from that of dancing for a performance.”

With a bit of time left to spare before catching the return flight to Delhi and then home to KL the next day, many of us took the opportunity to visit the newly opened Aadivart State Museum for Tribal and Folk Art of Madhya Pradesh. Being immersed in tribal art was a wonderful way to spend our last few hours here. Our collective introduction to Khajuraho had been nothing short of astounding and the word “memorable” barely begins to describe it. We can’t wait for Sutra’s next round. Hopefully, before another 20 years go by.

The Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society (SIFAS) Festival of Arts 2023 in collaboration with Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay as part of Raga Series presents Jaya Ram by Sutra Foundation on Friday 28 April at 7.30pm. Tickets available at: www.sistic.com.sg/events/jaya0423