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Holly Small
Menaka Thakkar and Rina Singha are two of Canada's eminent dance artists. Working independently as solo dancers, each began her Canadian career some thirty years ago. They worked as performers, choreographers, teachers and advocates for what is now called cultural diversity, in a milieu singularly focussed, at the time, on Western theatrical dance.
Rina Singha came to Canada in the mid-1960s. Originally from Calcutta (India), she trained in Kathak under the legendary guru, Shambhu Maharaj of Lucknow (Northern India). A professional soloist since 1961, Ms. Singha has danced throughout India, Europe, North America and Asia, earning wide acclaim for the purity of her technique and the contemporary wisdom and beauty of her interpretive powers. Ms. Singha has choreographed both traditional and experimental dance works, using Kathak to explore societal and environmental issues. She specializes in the interpretation of Western Biblical stories and is recognized internationally as a leader in Christian dance.
Ms. Singha is founder of the Rina Singha Kathak Institute (Toronto), and a leading Canadian dance ethnologist, educator and author. She holds an M.A. (Geography) and an M.Ed. (Arts Education), and has developed dance-based educational programmes for the deaf and for cross-cultural understanding. She is a recipient of awards and honours from UNESCO, duMaurier Arts Award (1994), Dance Ontario (1991), Raag-Mala Performing Arts of Canada (1992), Hindu Federation of Canada, Bharatiya Kala Kendra (New Delhi Award for Significant Contribution in the Field of Dance), the Government of India, and the Title Award for Excellence in Teaching Kathak (1984) by the Federation of Indo-Canadians.
Menaka Thakkar is from Bombay (India) and came to Canada in 1972. In the past thirty-five years, she has been awarded numerous honours in both India and Canada, including an Honorary Doctorate from York University, Toronto. She was the subject of a CBC documentary, and was a nominee for Japan's Fukuoka Asian Cultural Prize, the Tri-National Choreographic Award and the Dora Mavor Moore award. Hailed as an exquisitely expressive performer, she specializes in three forms of classical Indian dance, Bharatanatyam, Odissi and Kuchipudi. She maintains an extensive performing career throughout India, Europe, North America, Japan and South East Asia as a soloist, and with Menaka Thakkar Dance Company of Canada, which she founded in 1987.
Ms. Thakkar's choreography is richly textured and provocative, ranging from bewitching solo works to elaborate dance dramas. Her 1994 work, Sitayana or "Sita's Story," is a contemporary Bharatanatyam dance which recounts the story of the Ramayana from a woman's point of view. She has drawn inspiration from traditional sources such as the poetry of Rabindranath Tagore, and the 12th century Sanskrit poem Geeta Govinda, but is also intrigued by cross-cultural collaborations and has worked with numerous Canadian artists including Grant Strate, Robert Desrosiers, Claudia Moore, Danny Grossman, Bengt Jörgen, William Lau and Patrick Parson.
Ms. Thakkar founded Nrtyakala, The Canadian Academy of Indian Dance, in Toronto in 1975, and for the past twenty-five years has worked in Toronto and across Canada to develop a new generation of Indian dancers. Many of her students have gone on to establish their own careers and companies such as Manohara Dance Company in Winnipeg.
The pioneering efforts of Rina Singha and Menaka Thakkar gave audiences an understanding that classical Indian dance embraces both ancient tradition and startling innovation. Eventually the arts councils acknowledged that these two dance artists deserved to be supported as any other exceptional choreographer. This breakthrough into the mainstream prepared the way for the emergence of a vibrant community of second-generation Indian dancers: Lata Pada, founder of Mississauga's Sampradaya Dance Creations, noted for her solo concerts which blend 'classicism with an individual stamp of creativity'; Joanna Das, Kathak dancer, adventurous cross-cultural collaborator and co-director of Toronto's M-DO; Toronto visual and dance artist Janak Khendry; Brampton dancer and teacher Aaloka Mehndiratta; and Ottawa scholar and dancer Anne-Marie Gaston (Anjali), to name just a few.
As this community has flourished, a virtual explosion of Indian dance has emerged, including Natasha Bakht, Nova Battacharya, Hari Krishnan, and Chitraleka Odissi Dance Creations, founded by Devraj Patnaik in 1997 out of the Burlington school his mother Chitraleka Patnaik established in 1975. Pehaps the clearest indication of the vitality of the South Asian dance community has been the establishment of Toronto's Kala Nidhi Fine Arts of Canada dance festivals, a forum for excellence in Indian dance on an international scale.
BIBLIOGRAPHY
The Dance Current, Volume #3, Issue 1, May 2000.
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Photo: Rina Singha
Photo: Menaka Thakkar
Photo: Lata Pada
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