At the Spectrum Dance Festival, exponents of multiple genres will present choreographies that have been inspired by collaboration and contemplation.
By Akshaya Pillai
Bettina Castaño and Aditi Bhagwat move through each other’s worlds like they have always belonged there. Castaño has 20 years of India in her steps. Having collaborated with Kathakali, Bharatanatyam, Kathak artistes previously, her Flamenco roots trace themselves through soils, familiar and new. Bhagwat, her feet steeped in the rhythm of Lavani and Kathak, tap to the pulse of Flamenco in return.
For the duo, the Spectrum Dance Festival is a fullcircle moment. This is where their first collaboration took shape in 2020, right before the world stopped. The pandemic, however, couldn’t break what they had started. In fact, it was during the lockdown that they found themselves in a quiet resort in Kerala, an empty hall at their disposal and the hours ahead of them. “We would start early and dance late into the night, pausing only for food,” Bhagwat says, remembering fondly the synchronised sound of their feet and the deafening quiet outside. These days, they practise across screens, slipping between time zones, the distance made smaller by the trust they have built. They have taught each other’s disciples, swapped rhythms, stretched the boundaries of their forms, and in the process, stitched up a friendship as intricate as their footwork.
When we speak, Bhagwat is excitedly waiting to meet Castaño again. She tells me their collaboration was never about showcasing two separate worlds onstage. Instead, it has continued to find the space between the two worlds, where something new can emerge. “The turning of wrists is different in Kathak and Flamenco, but these days, when I compose, I try and bring the influence of remate from Flamenco, which grips you in the end. It helps take out the predictable,” she illustrates. “It’s not just chunks of solos, with both styles meeting at the end. A lot of times this is what we end up seeing during a collaboration, 80 per cent solos with 20 per cent collaboration, usually towards the end. Bettina and I have however built a common body, a language, a unified whole.”
In that way, the Spectrum Dance Festival mirrors their collaboration: a space where movement is not bound by tradition but allowed to stretch and shift. It is where dancers step beyond their own styles and discover what comes next.
There is a similar spirit in the work of Sujata Mohapatra, whose precision in Odissi speaks as much to the resilience of the dancers under her tutelage as to the beauty of the form itself. Her philosophy, rooted in discipline, embraces the space for transformation. “Dancers always need support in many ways,” she says, reflecting on her first year as a mentor in the NCPA Nrityagurukul Programme, a two-year holistic mentorship programme that will help senior dance students transition into a professional artiste, choreographer and teacher with the capabilities of pursuing dance as a career.
For Mohapatra, an artiste of extraordinary grace, the process of creating is as much about listening as it is about doing. Two of her disciples will perform this year, but their journeys couldn’t be more different. Soumya carries no legacy of dance in his bloodline, but it pulses through him now, hard won and earned. Ankita, after a devastating accident, was advised not to dance again. Instead, she returns to the stage, her body altered and fortified. Through the pandemic, Mohapatra guided her, carefully crafting her movements, honouring both her limitations and her defiance. “It’s about finding new ways to explore and experiment,” says Mohapatra.
In these moments of tension, of translation, dance perhaps feels most alive. It springs and waltzes like a question: What does it mean to meet someone else’s rhythm halfway? To let your body unlearn and relearn its truths?
Vaibhav Arekar, one of India’s leading Bharatanatyam soloists, asks these and some more questions. A master of the form, his work stretches to its edges without snapping the thread of tradition. Dance is a conversation, Arekar seems to say through his choreography. Sometimes with others, sometimes with the past. He is also a mentor of the Nrityagurukul Programme, helping the NCPA shape the artistes of tomorrow.
And then there’s the fascinating presentation by Tanusree Shankar, whose work channels the philosophy of her father-in-law, Uday Shankar. She describes the style as “Indian in origin, modern in presentation,” but the words don’t quite capture the experience of watching it. Her pieces unfold like maps, tracing the contours of the environment, the five senses, the infinite ways the body belongs to the world. “Creating a piece from scratch is always a challenge,” Shankar says. “But the flexibility of this style allows for endless innovation.” Her work is a kaleidoscope, inviting the audience to look, interpret and feel. In her words, dance is a journey. Each performance is a destination, its meaning shaped as much by the audience as by the dancers themselves. “Come with an open mind,” she says, “and enjoy it in your own way.”
What does it mean to inhabit a tradition without being bound by it? Every dancer who is part of the line-up grapples with this question, feels it in the flex of their muscles, the flick of their feet, the weight of their histories. At the Spectrum Dance Festival, they carry the past not as an anchor but as a compass.
This article was originally published in the February 2025 issue of ON Stage.