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Photo: Murali Kumar K.

ALL ABSORBING Tripti Bhupen: ‘Bharatanatya with its vast vocabulary is flexible enough to admit innovations’

One such artist is the Bharatanatya dancer Tripti Bhupen. Trained in Kalakshetra, Chennai, Tripti has founded a dance school in Ahmedabad called Samarpan School of Performing Arts and currently heads the performing-arts department of an international school in Bangalore. She has allied to Bharatnatya, a myriad of music forms traditionally considered alien to this form. Tripti has used Western-Indian fusion music and Hindustani music-forms like taraanas, bhajans, and ghazals in Bharatnatya. Not khayals and thumris though, since these are strongly associated with Kathak.

In all these cases, recorded or live music from performers replaces the nattuvanga, violin, mridanga, etc., that customarily accompany Bharatnatya. However, Tripti has not given any performance based entirely on these innovative items. Rather, these are five to 15-minute pieces included in between the regular repertoire of allarippu, varnam, padam, thillana, etc. This, she says strikes the right balance between giving a touch of variety and novelty to the programme, and yet keeping it true to tradition.

But why the choice of these particular elements to incorporate into Bharatnatya? She explains: “Firstly, I am a north-Indian. So these forms were part of the cultural heritage I inherited and am still surrounded by. Secondly, even after turning a Bharatnatyam performer, I continued to be exposed to these influences during my long stay in Dubai. Most importantly, I feel Bharatnatya with its vast vocabulary and comprehensive grammar is flexible enough to admit innovations without in any way compromising the purity of its rich traditions. Finally, I feel these experiments have yielded a satisfying blend.”

So, Shankar-Mahadevan has sung live for her performances. Likewise, when Indo-Swedish fusion-music band Mynta Surya visited Dubai, she chose an interesting instrumental-music composition from their repertoire and choreographed a piece called Apsara based on it. Later, she performed this piece on stage, with the band playing this composition live for her. Tripti has also used the music of different composers like Atul and Arun (their bhajans) for her invocatory dance pieces. Again, Tripti organised an evening of ghazals and dances called “Poetry and Emotion” and had Neena and Rajendra Mehta sing their ghazals and bhajans live to accompany a few of her Bharatnatyam items. Here, the sarangi, tabla and ghazal singers replaced the traditional accompaniments.

Tripti and her ensemble Samarpan have performed to many of Ustad Ali Akbar Khan’s compositions, especially taraanas, for the World Dance Day celebrations in Dubai, where she involves professionals from various Indian classical-dance styles. The music is chosen on the criteria of its melody, mood and compatibility with the various streams of dance. “For these combined-dance items I had to use an innovative musical accompaniment as using the music of any one style would have done injustice to the others. So, I use a combination of several music forms.”

Thus, the same piece will have Ali Akbar Khan’s and Zakir Husain’s compositions, Shankar Mahadevan’s vocals, Ravi Shankar’s sitar, Fazal Qureshi’s tabla and Taufiq Qureshi’s percussion, etc., all combined in a way to suit her requirements. In case of recorded-music accompaniments, she first listens to the CDs of different artistes, identifies the suitable parts, cuts and pastes these bits together, and hands it to a technician who strings them into a fluid, composite piece.

Tripti is one more artist who is proving that art can be as much a medium of individual expression as a reflection of age-old traditions.

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