Interview with Asavari Ukidve - Kathak Soloist
Asavari Ukidve performs her first kathak solo after 15 years of intensive study and teaching of kathak, and a decades long relationship with the art. She performs on November 19 at 4pm at the Palo Alto JCC Schults Theater. TICKETS HERE
Asavari began her study of Kathak at the age of 7 in India and trained for about 8 years. Years later she revived her Kathak training with Pandit Chitresh Das in 2000. Asavari has performed in many of Pandit Das' school show productions and Bay Area dance and community events. Her daughter, Avani is currently a member of the Chitresh Das Youth Company and a Teaching Assistant. Asavari started teaching at the Cupertino branch in 2011 and hopes to continue sharing and growing Pandit Chitresh Das’s legacy along with other CDI teachers.
INTERVIEW BY SHREYA KHANDEWALE
Shreya: What inspired you to embark on the journey of doing a traditional Kathak solo?
Asavari: I’ve been learning Kathak on and off since I was 7 years old. In India, I learned for a few years, and then I stopped learning due to engineering studies. Then, I came here for grad school in Utah in the mid-nineties, where at the time, there was no Indian community. Finally, I moved to California in 1997, where I started realizing, “Hey, maybe I can pick this up again — there are opportunities to dance in the Bay Area.”
I was searching for schools, but none that I found inspired me to study. Then, in 2000, I found Pandit Chitresh Das’ school, Chhandam, in Union City. At the time, we lived in Fremont, so Chhandam was perfect. I immediately felt a connection with the style of dance Chhandam taught and with Pandit Chitresh Das.
A few years ago, I realized that I’ve been learning dance now for 15 years. I had the privilege of learning directly from Dadaji for several of those years. After Dadaji’s passing, Charlotte Didi continued to guide and inspire us. She always pushed us, saying, “You guys can do a solo, even if you think you can’t. You absolutely can.” I always felt that until I do a solo myself, I won’t know what my boundaries are and how far I can push myself. So a big motivator for me was to really push myself — my tayyari, layakari, everything. It’s one thing to do it in class, but when you’re working towards a really ambitious goal like this then you have to push yourself to a completely different level.
Recently, some of my adult students have also been pushing me to do the solo; they’ve asked, “Asavari Didi, why aren’t you doing a solo?” and I thought, “Okay, maybe I should think about it.” One of the most important people asking was my daughter, Avani, who herself is in the Youth Company now. She’s seen me dance since she was very young, and for the last few years, she’s been asking me the same question too — “Why aren’t you doing a solo?”
The thoughts behind my solo have been there for the last few years, but then COVID happened, pausing all my plans. Funnily enough, one of my goals was to do my solo before I turned 50. Unfortunately, that didn’t happen — I just turned 50 earlier this year, but it’s still my 50th year, so I feel lucky!
Shreya: Thinking back to the solo itself, what has your artistic process been like? What has been your experience collaborating with both Charlotte Didi and the other artists?
Asavari: When you start working on something like this, there are so many uncertainties. Even though I talked to Charlotte Didi about the solo in January, I really committed to this project in May, after the school show. The artistic process was initially really unnerving, because I was trying to put a lot of new things together. Initially, I was building my tayyari, doing all sorts of footwork for an hour everyday to build my stamina. Then, I started working on my thaat, which is a fundamental component of a Kathak solo. For the first month, I videotaped myself trying various combinations of things and seeing what looked good. Only in August did I have a couple of sessions with Charlotte Didi, where we refined my thaat. Those sessions were incredibly inspiring and really showed me the importance of experience. Charlotte Didi didn’t change any of my work — she made it even more beautiful. Seeing how her mind worked and how she blended rhythm and grace was amazing; she knew when to tell me to strike a karanth or cut back on footwork.
For the next two months, Charlotte Didi was zeroed in on “Invoking the River”. Fortunately, I was able to work with Saneyee, the vocalist, for those two months; it was important for me to understand the music we were performing, and she was extremely helpful and cooperative.
This past month has been intense. Going into the room with all the musicians and Charlotte Didi is so overwhelming. All of them bring years and years of experience to the process. We’ll start discussing a song, and Nilan would suddenly say: “Oh, let me add this composition! I think it’ll fit perfectly,” and sometimes Charlotte Didi will respond, “Maybe this doesn’t fit here, but it’ll be great in the thaat,” and we’ll keep going back and forth. Ben brings great experience on sarod, and Saneyee as a vocalist. Watching all the artists work together and giving structure to all of the pieces has been an amazing experience, and I’ve learned so much. I don’t think I would have gotten this experience had I not embarked on this journey.
Shreya: As you were thinking about your pieces, was there anything specific you drew inspiration from?
Asavari: I think Dadaji (Pandit Chitresh Das) drives the inspiration behind everything we do. Thinking about the pieces specifically, I knew I wanted to do one Radha-Krishna chhed-chhad piece. When I was composing it, I would go back to everything we learned in Holi Tarana or Mai Toh Shaam, both Dadaji’s compositions. I remembered how Dadaji would depict so beautifully the difference between Radha and Krishna. I could hear his voice in class telling us that in order to portray the masculine form in Krishna and the feminine form in Radha nicely, “a Kathak dancer must embody the ardhanarishwara (the coming together of female and male energy or Shiva-Shakti) feeling within themselves,”. One of my other songs is in Viraha Ras, in which a woman pines for her beloved who has gone to a far off land. For that piece, I think of the emotions this woman has experienced and my mind goes to how Dadaji performed similar pieces and showed similar emotions so profoundly.
As I put it all together, I continually think about how I can make my pieces better. I’m always thinking about how Charlotte Didi edits pieces to improve them. Even right before the performance, she’ll continue to tweak our pieces until they’re just right. I think the lesson there is: keep improving — what you choreograph the very first time may not be what you want finally. Every Sunday, I watch Charlotte Didi tell the Youth Company in class, “Record yourself. Unless you record yourself, you don’t know what you’re doing wrong or how you look.” All of these tidbits showed me to never settle; even if I saw something as good, there was always room for improvement.
Shreya: What was the most challenging part as you were preparing for the solo?
Asavari: The most challenging part was not being able to interact with the musicians until later on in the process, because I felt like I was working on a lot of things, but it was specifically my thoughts and my creativity. There was no validation on whether my creations worked or not. Of course, the other difficult piece was building my stamina, but that was more physically challenging. In our adults class, we never set our nagma to too fast of a speed, so I had to really push myself outside class, asking — can I do 56 beats per minute, or even 60? But this was all on me. But this other piece, of not having accessibility to musicians and being able to brainstorm with them while my work was coming together, was difficult. But once we started working together, everything came together.
Shreya: On the flip side, what are you most excited about in the lead up to the performance?
Asavari: A lot of my friends and family know I dance and that I’ve been teaching for several years, but nobody has seen me dance outside of the school show or community performances. I’m super excited to showcase something I’m this passionate about, and that I’ve been learning throughout my life. Most of my friends and family haven’t been exposed to Kathak; in fact, a lot of them are from the southern part of India and know about the tradition of Bharatnatyam Arangetram but have never watched a Kathak solo before. I’m also excited to share this performance with my CDI community — to show them what I can do and to hear some good critiques from them too from the show.
Shreya: Any final thoughts you want to share?
Asavari: One thing I wanted to share was a special experience I had with Saneyee. Something I wanted to do as part of this solo was pay a tribute to my dad, who is no more. He was the one who named me Asavari (a Hindustani classical raag), and even though I never formally learned Hindustani classical music, I wanted to dance part of my performance in Raag Asavari. Sanayee composed a brand new tarana in Asavari. It really touched my heart that she volunteered to do that — I felt like, “Wow! Even she’s putting so much effort into this.” She composed one asthayi and one antara, and when we started working with the musicians, Charlotte Didi and Ben Ji had their own thoughts on how to embellish and change the piece. She was so open to altering things or adding another antara. I’m really thankful that Saneyee for this special contribution to my solo.
Finally, I would like offer my gratitude to Pandit Chitresh Das, to Charlotte Didi, and to Ben Ji, Saneyee Ji, and Nilan Ji, who collaborated so deeply and gave so much for me to put this showcase together.