Interview with Charlotte Moraga
Charlotte Moraga is a ganda bandhan sishya (disciple) of the great kathak aritst, guru, and visionary Pandit Chitresh Das. She is the Artistic Director and Co-Founder of the Chitresh Das Institute, as well as the Choreographer and Artistic Director of “Invoking the River”. Shreya Khandewale, who studied with both Pandit Chitresh Das and Charlotte Moraga as part of the Chitresh Das Youth Company, interviews Charlotte Moraga.
Shreya: What does Invoking the River mean to you?
Charlotte Didi: “Invoking the River” is part of a tryptic: there are three works which I have been creating. Aranya Katha is about the forest and resources and “Mantram” is about the maha pancha bhuta, but more specifically, fire, thinking about the devastating wildfires in California and around the world because of climate change, but also social fires and emotional fires. I think the events of 2020 really helped shape that narrative. “Invoking the River” is really an homage to the rivers, and to water, which is the opposite of fire but also not. Fire has a very destructive quality, but also lays the ground for new ground – it’s incredibly regenerative. Water is the same way, it’s very powerful. Water is life. But in our tradition, there’s a duality – water is also death. Water can be an incredibly destructive force – look what’s happening due to the hurricanes now, and the flooding in Pakistan. You can have too much, and it can cause death, and also not enough, and it can cause death.
“Invoking the River” is an homage to the sacred rivers in India, which hold this life force and are considered goddesses. We’re trying to invoke that quality of water to wash us, nurture us, and make us fresh, open, and nourished. We want to show the personification of these sacred rivers, and their ability to clear us and rejuvenate us, and to bring us salvation and redemption, as well.
Shreya: I would love to hear more on your experiences mentoring and collaborating with Mayuka, Vanita, Kritika, and Shruti. What has it been like to see these 4 distinct stories take shape?
Charlotte Didi: We have four dancers who came out of the Youth Company program. The river is a metaphor – it’s harkening to the mythology of these sacred rivers but it’s also a metaphor for the river of knowledge. It’s really a flow of continued learning, self-discovery, self-actualization, and knowledge through the art and dance of Kathak for dancers who want to continue that journey. Each dancer is personifying a river that they somehow connect with.
First, there’s the Alaknanda – Kritika is personifying its power, how it can simultaneously be soft and flowing but also powerful. The Alaknanda is one of seven source rivers for the Ganga, and the story of the Ganga is that she came down to Earth so forcefully that Shiva captured her in his locks to break her fall.
Vanita is also interested in the Ganga, specifically the Manikarnika Ghat. Vanita is connected to this because both of her grandparents passed away during COVID, and her parents took their bodies to the Manikarnika Ghat on the Ganga. She has questions about our tradition – cleansing your sins and escaping that cycle of rebirth. Rather than a literal interpretation of these rituals, she focuses on dealing with grief. In her story, we talk specifically about the Ganga, but there are so many rivers people feel are sacred and can wash away your sins. Even in the Christian faith, you’re baptized in a river. It’s the bigger picture of how water and the rivers help us deal with our grief and help us feel connected to that cycle of life and rebirth.
Mayuka is South Indian, so she wanted to learn more about Kaveri, and hence, herself. With Kaveri, there’s a mythological creation that she was trapped in a pot; when the pot broke open, she flooded out. As a young woman of Indian heritage trying to make it in America, she’s felt trapped before so this story is all about exploring that. When Kaveri finally breaks free, the North and South are fighting over her resources – kind of like in California, where we were fighting over the Colorado River – so even though she’s out of her pot, she still feels trapped once again.
Finally, Shruti is exploring the Godavari, an area which her ancestors are from. Each of the dancers feel this connection between the land and the river. In India, widows of any age have to give up their lives, their clothes, jewelry, shave their heads, and wear white. Essentially, they give up the rest of their lives in service in ashrams. Near the Godavari River, a couple took in these widows and helped rehabilitate them and give them a sense of purpose. Shruti is exploring this concept of a river as a sanctuary.
In these stories, we explore the power of the river, the life force of the river, the cleansing and washing away of the old ways of being and the rejuvenation, the barraging of the river, and finally, the river as a sanctuary. The last river, Saraswati, is mythological rather than physical. There’s no proof that she’s underground, even though she may have been there at one time. We end with a sangam of all the rivers coming together – the sisters – and invoking Saraswati to appear and come join us.
Shreya: Thinking more about “Invoking the River”, “Mantram”, and “Aranya Katha”, I would love to hear more about what activism looks like in the arts, and what has led you to this new path in artistic direction.
Charlotte Didi: I don’t really think any of this is new, but it’s definitely more urgent. Dance is my medium of self expression, and it always has been my whole life. The reason I came to study in the Guru-Shishya Parampara with Guruji is because he fully believed that. He was very focused on developing a dancer according to their individuality. Because I had a dance background, he always gave me a lot of freedom to choreograph my solos. Now, I always ask that question, “What needs to be said? If I’m going to portray Lakshman, how does that relate to me, in this time and in this place?”
When we did Sita Haran, traditionally, it would end when Ram shoots Bali in the back, for the purpose of his moksha, his release. Instead, Guruji chose to end it with the pain of Bali’s wife and son, and Bali’s disbelief that such a great, revered character would shoot him in the back. Looking at this story from different perspectives, he was asking, “Is violence ever the right answer? By any means necessary – are the means more important than the results?” So this sense of activism has always been there, but it’s just become more urgent, one devastating natural disaster after another. It’s not that it didn’t exist before, but climate change recently has become so real, tangible, and palpable. It’s creating a tremendous amount of instability across the world.
Shreya: Diving deeper into the piece about the freedom Dadaji gave you as a dancer, how do you reconcile carrying out his legacy with exploring your personal artistic voice and self expression?
Charlotte Didi: I think that there is a misunderstanding about traditional arts. People tend to think traditional arts are a regurgitation of the ones that came before them. This couldn’t be more different, especially in Kathak, which has so many different Hindu, Muslim, and regional influences, and a vast amount of upaj (improvisation), built into the art form. When you tell stories in Kathak, you portray both masculine and feminine – the concept of ardhanariswara is also built into the art form.
Exploring your own identity, exploring what’s in your heart, and connecting what you do into a deep practice becomes a sadhana or a devotion. When you start putting that into your work, you cannot do anything but speak for yourself. I can teach the Natwari tihais and many of his brilliant compositions, but it’s up to the next generation to perform in their own way based on their embodied experience. There’s also creating your own – creating your own compositions, and taals – with lots of practice, it can’t help but bubble out of you, just like a tributary out of a stream.
Shreya: What was the most challenging part in the whole “Invoking the River” journey, and what are you most excited about in the next week leading up to the performance?
Charlotte Didi: The most challenging part of the process is working with artists who do not live near you. This resulted in lots of visits and intensive incubation periods, where we all got together for a weekend, and then incubated these ideas. Working on our own, then sending material back and forth – that was the biggest challenge. The creative process is not easy to define, and with every work I do, it changes slightly. One thing that remains the same – it’s collaborative.
I really enjoy working with artists who are deeply steeped in a specific tradition, who have something to say and a personal connection to it which makes them say things in a way that is very compelling and unique. With Alam, he is deeply trained in the tradition of his father, Ustad Ali Akbar Khan Saab, but he’s also creating new, contemporary work. It’s the same with Utsav – he’s deeply trained in piano, which is not a traditional Indian instrument, so he brings a lot of his own creative flair to that. Alka is a multi-artist, she’s a director, a filmmaker, a poet, a sculptor, a painter. I love working with collaborators who have unique takes on things and deep practices as well.
This performance is a bit different because I’m collaborating with my dancers – they’re all adults now! When you were in the Youth Company, most of my work was, “Okay, learn this choreography, do this, do that.” Not that I give up that role completely, but now it’s a lot more collaborative – “What do you think? How would you choreograph this? How would you move this jati from here to here as water?” A lot of it is trusting them, and collaborating with the dancers, because this is a new process for me, and it’s been really exciting.
Shreya: Any final thoughts you want to share?
Charlotte Didi: Come see it, if you can! A lot of love, time – and I’m talking years, because it’s not something that just happens overnight – and urgency has gone into this work. Dance is ephemeral; it’s not like a painting you can hang up on your wall, or a book you can put on your shelf. If you don’t see it, and you’re not there in person, it just disappears. So come see it :)
Featuring choreography by Charlotte Moraga, music by Utsav Lal, multimedia & poetry by Alka Raghuram. Performances by Chitresh Das Dance Vanita Mundhra, Shruti Pai, Mayuka Sarukkai & Kritika Sharma and live music by Utsav Lal (piano) and Nilan Chaudhuri (tabla).
Shreya Khandewale is a Chitresh Das Youth Company alumni. She started studying Kathak at Pandit Chitresh Das’ institution as a child and continued to study for over a decade. She performed her graduating Youth Company Showcase in 2018 and is now a CDI Community Communications Contributor.