Hindustani and Carnatic percussion come together in unusual pairing for Kathak in ‘Ekah: One Breath’

On 26 September 2025, Oddbird Theatre in Delhi presented ‘Ekah: One Breath’ by Kathak dancers Gaurav S.S. Bhatti and Aamrapali Bhandari. Gaurav, raised in Punjab and Canada, learnt Kathak from Saveeta Sharma in Ottawa, and then from gurus Lata Bakalkar in Mumbai and Aditi Mangaldas in Delhi, finally becoming part of Mangaldas’ Aditi Mangaldas Dance Company—The Drishtikon Foundation repertory. Aamrapali, who was also a repertory member of Drishtikon, is a Kathak Kendra dancer who has trained under Pt. Rajendra Gangani and worked under Aditi Mangaldas. She is also a performing sitarist trained by Pt. Barun Kumar Pal and has taught and worked in Singapore in the past. 

Though the performances were rooted in Kathak, they had touches of contemporary elements. Gaurav experiments with his style. The performance was in three parts – Gaurav’s solo on Bulleh Shah; Aamrapali’s solo, which was about women and their connection to the cyclic movements of the moon; and their joint piece, ‘Ekah – One Breath’, based on Kathak, showing attributes of Shiva and Parvati. Accompanying them were Sankumay Debnath on vocals, Ashish Gangani on the pakhawaj, Mohit Gangani on the tabla, Amir Khan on the sarangi and the surprising inclusion of the mridangam by Manohar Balatchandirane, who added a Carnatic element, especially to the last piece. The lights were by Govind Singh Yadav. 

Gaurav S.S. Bhatti

Gaurav began in a flowing white costume, doubled up on the floor, with his arms spread out. To the trance-like music, his hands moved in gentle, flowing movements, at times moving together, at other times entangled. He moved around the stage in flowing moves, hands moving like turning pages, and at other times like snakes. 

 

His moves turned forceful after some time. Though they were all abstract moves, he added a few elements of Kathak nritta to it as Ashish Gangani played the pakhawaj. Gaurav showed immense energy and flexibility in his moves as he moved from standing to prostrating and lying down, and immediately getting up, in smooth, agile sequences. 

 

The moves varied from strong and energetic to tender. The verses that were recited were from the Manusmriti, the significance of which was as abstract as the piece. According to Gaurav, he used these verses to show that religious texts too can be misleading. The Bulleh Shah composition was sung live: ‘Aaja yaar de didar nu tarase aakhiyan’. Gaurav took rapid chakkars and footwork for the composition, the mridangam and pakhawaj setting the rhythm as Ashish did the padhant. 

Amrapali Bhandari

The next piece was ‘Avartini’, a solo by Amrapali Bhandari, for which she was mentored by Deepak Kurki Shivaswamy. The piece was all about cyclic movements: the seasons, the diurnal rhythm, the lunar rhythm, the cosmic rhythm and finally, the woman’s body, which undergoes cyclic changes. On a dark winter night or amavasya, a period of introspection, purification and solitude, she becomes ekah, complete, one with her spirit. As the seasons turn and spring sets in, she starts to unfold, she renews her energy, and shringara rasa becomes predominant. There is hope and new beginnings. When the light is bright and the full moon emerges on a poornima, it is the time of shringara rasa and fertility. The power of the feminine is at its peak. Then she quietly settles into the autumn. It is a period of reflection and release, and the wait to go back into her period or forced solitude in winter. Her every breath and movement is a testimony to the knowledge that she is not just a part of the universe, but the entire cosmos herself. The question is: does the cycle ever end? This is what the introductory note said, but when I talked to Aamrapali later, it became even more fascinating.  

From the total dark, when Aamrapali came into the dim light, she moved backward and forward in a S-shaped curve, dressed in a golden costume. It was dim light, just with her figure-of-eight movement on the stage and the sound of her ghunghroos. The recitations in the background said, ‘O sakhi sun, nari ka jivan aavartani chandrakala hai. Har ritu uske bheetar hi khilti, har din naya hai.’ She wore a gold-striped costume which amplified her depiction of a glowing woman. She stood in a broad plié, with trembling hands that she moved up and down her legs. The next ritu was vasant – ‘Jaise phoolon ki chadar ya uske man ke upavan me nav pallav khila hai, ek nayi kamana jagaye.’ 

The nritta for this piece was very precise and sharp. The percussion and beats were given by all three percussionists: tabla, mridangam and pakhawaj, with Ashish on the padhant. Grishm is the next season: ‘Grishm ki tapish chhaye, ang ang me maadak jwar, uske hriday me chandranandan roop sajaye, har roop naya hai.’ Aamrapali showed the pouring of water to soothe the heat. ‘Sharad ki sandhya jab aaye, chand mand mand ghis jaye. Hriday ki kasak se jab jug ko gyaan batave. Har roop naya hai.’ The bodies are like sacred vessels when churned. 

In the autumn, she starts to move inward. ‘Yeh dukh hai ya vardan sakhi, jo deh me andhiyara chhaya, yeh uski gahan sadhna hai ya mukti ka dwar.’ This included very powerful nritta in the tez aamad, tode and paran. She steps into the night; she is a whisper or a celestial echo. She wears the full moon, chandranandan, as a crown or a halo. Her body is a sacred vessel, a chalice, and within her the nayika finds her ultimate dance, the dance of creation and divine union. This summer night is not a time of heat, but that of transmutation, a gentle fire that refines the gold of her being. Her being hums with every beat of her soul, she is the ultimate poetry. She is not a part of the cosmos but the cosmos herself. She ended the piece as she had started it, moving back and forth in S-shaped curves. The poetry was the soul of this piece, and the author chose to be anonymous, as did the person reciting it. The poetry was a little unclear about the seasons, at times, to me. The nritta portions were flawless and gushing with energy. The abhinaya had the movements of the hands showing the movement of the moon and following it. At times, as the poetry required, it was sensuous, touching, showing the glow of the nayika. The costume complemented the golden glow of the nayika on a full moon summer night. The hands moved rapidly and intensely in some parts, and her body swayed to the aalap. 

Mohit Gangani on tabla, Manohar Balatchandirane on mridangam and Ashish Gangani on the pakhawaj

 

Sankumay Debnath

The next piece, ‘Yaad Piya Ki Aaye’, was the musicians’ showcase. It featured foot-tapping music (hard for Kathak dancers to resist tapping their feet to this, literally), with the trio playing on each of their percussion instruments, with melodious vocals by Sankumay. 

Gaurav S.S. Bhatti and Aamrapali Bhandari

The dancers, meanwhile, changed into flowing beige gowns for the last piece, ‘Ekah’, which used the depiction of Shiva and Parvati to represent fluid duality. They started with footwork to tapping sounds. They moved in circles, towards each other and away. They swayed to the percussion, standing front to front, back to front and back to back. 

 

The percussion also shifted from one instrument to the other. The dancers joined hands in various stances. ‘Uma–Shankara’ was the composition that was sung. They took various stances to show Shiva and Parvati: thumb on palm, trishul, jata, Ganga. Gaurav sat down and knelt all the way backwards, his head touching the floor. The percussionists, meanwhile, played the two words, ‘Parvati’ and ‘Mahadev’, in a sequence with padhant. Gaurav and Aamrapali depicted rundamal, reverberations of the damru, chandra, riding the Nandi and the mother riding the lion, third eye, backward sways to show the jata, parvat, bhasma on the body. Their nritta in between had neat parans, aamad and natwari.  

A very interesting aspect was that in this piece, the male counterpart or the Shiva was being made and taught by the feminine Shakti. She dictates that Shankara be himself and taught him to dance his tandava. He is the Nandi and it is Shakti who rides him. She dominates him. Aamrapali’s chakkars on her knees were energetic. In their flowing costume, the two virtuosos took chakkars to ‘Adidev Mahadev, Har Har Shambhu’. It was a totally exhilarating experience if you were there for three of the shining stars of Delhi’s young percussionists and two of the young Kathak–contemporary dancers. I wish they could make their interpretations a little clearer, because I got a much better insight into the pieces only after talking to them later.  

Afterwards, I spoke to Manohar, the Carnatic mridangam star of Delhi, about being in a Hindustani-led production, to Ashish, the pakhawaj virtuoso of Drishtikon and star of Delhi’s Kathak circles, and to the two dancers. 

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Manohar 

Q: What was it like to collaborate with Hindustani musicians? 
A: It was a wonderful experience to work with them as a Carnatic musician and nice to learn new rhythms, especially in Kathak, which is a new area for me and where the lyrical poetry in the compositions is very different from the more linear, structured nature of Carnatic compositions. They are amazing musicians and you always get to learn something new. 

Q: How tough is it to work together, since the basic structure is different? 
A: Yes, it is something to get used to since techniques are very different and the speed of the performance is significantly higher than that of a Bharatanatyam or a Kuchipudi recital. It is challenging to match the energy of the other musicians. Otherwise it is fun, as always, and a great learning experience.  

Ashish 

Q: What was it like to collaborate with Carnatic percussion? 

A: Bahut achha laga Carnatic music ke saath mein collaborate karke. Kathak ke saath kaafi saari Carnatic cheezein aapne suni hongi – jaise tihaiyan, jaati mein chhand... Kathak hai par ismein Carnatic bol bhi hai and hum koshish kar rahe the ki Carnatic style se hi isko bajayein. End mein jo tihai thi, Carnatic style ki, woh madhyam ke hisaab se bajai humne, na ki Kathak ke bol ke hisaab se. Mushkil ka kaam tha thoda, bahut achha laga karke, kyunki first time mridang mein poora Kathak bajaya. Manohar bhai itne lajawaab artist hain aur itne achhe hain, unke saath kaam karne mein itna mazaa aata hai. Bahut mazaa aaya, is baar kuch alag kaam tha (It was wonderful to collaborate with Carnatic. You will have heard many Canatic elements along with the Kathak – like the tihais, chhand in jaatis... It was Kathak but with Carnatic bols and we tried to play it in the Carnatic style. The Carnatic style tihai you heard at the end, we played it in madhyam, not in the style of Kathak bols. It was tough work but we loved doing it because the mridang was played entirely for Kathak for the first time. Manohar bhai is such a commensurate artist and so nice that it is always fun to work with him. It was different and great fun). 

Q: Dono vidhaon me antar hai, Kathak mein taal pradhan hai aur Carnatic me jaati aur laya (there is a different between the two disciplines – Kathak prioritizes taal whereas Carnatic prioritizes jaati and laya).  

A: Is baari teen taal chal rahi thi, lekin beech mein jo nau maatra, Basant taal aayi thi, usko humne 18 ka roop diya hua tha. Theka humne 9 matra ka bajaya tha lekin jo bandishon ka roop aur jo nagma wagerah chal raha tha, yeh sab 18 ke hisaab se chal raha tha. Humne 9 matra ka theka na rakh ke mridang ke hisaab se chhand banaya aur Carnatic ke hisaab se chhand rakha, 9 matra ko usi dhang se bajaya humne (we were playing teen taal, but the Basant taal you heard in the middle, in 9 beats, we played it as 18 beats. The structure was 9 beats but the bandish and nagma were played as 18 beats. We designed the chhand for the mridang, in the Carnatic way, and played the 9-beat in that style).  

 

Aamrapali and Gaurav 

Q: The piece about Shiva and Parvati, ‘Ekah’, was about rhythm, movement, percussion. But I felt that there was no distinction between masculine and feminine, Shiva and Parvati. Both the dancers were depicting both the characters together and alternately. 
 

Aamrapali: That is correct; that was something we decided when we were creating the piece. It is said that dance is feminine and war is masculine. But the god of dance is Nataraja and the fiercest warrior is Kali. So these are the thoughts we followed in our choreography – blurring the lines of gender.  

Gaurav: We wanted to show the duality, not individuality. Since it is Ardhanari, there is no difference between male and female. The idea was that it is not necessary that the male dancer has to do the male part. For me, it was physically a challenge, since I tend to dance much larger and broader, and here the movements had to be more restrained. We wanted to challenge ourselves as dancers, as artists, and transform the body rather than just adapt what we are used to.  

Q: At a point, I felt that Shiva was depending on Shakti to give him the moves and the energy for tandava. 

Aamrapali: Kehte hain ki ‘Shakti ke bina Shiva bhi shava hai’; that thought was in our minds while choreographing. We had to unlearn so much that we have learnt in the process of learning dance – that Shiva is supposed to be like this and Parvati is supposed to be like this. But what happens when they come together? Just before the union, what is the energy? Gaurav has shown it through his footwork in complete darkness and silence. There is a constant flow which is a universal sound: ‘na din din na’. When I join him, that flow of sound becomes sporadic, shown through footwork. But that is when it begins to blur. That sound can be static or rhythmic. That’s something we had to think about and that was where the wonderful musicians we had had a lot of input. We thought of how we could transform it through dance but with the music, it’s another ball game altogether – how does musicality transform the idea, how does music express it? 

Gaurav: If you noticed, in the beginning, there was travelling of the sound between the three percussionists through the bols ‘Uma Shankara’. We tried to depict it as not two energies colliding but as coming and going, flowing through each other, but not visually, since there is no form yet. What happens when they collide? Are they the same Shiva and Shakti or are they two energies? That was the seed. 

Aamrapali: Initially, when we incorporated Carnatic through the mridangam, we had thought that the pakhawaj would be Shiva and the mridangam would be Shakti. Then we thought can we swap it, and then we thought, it’s give and take, question and answer. It’s different, but it’s the same. That was something that inspired us – that mridangam can be Shiva or Shakti, and so can pakhawaj. For the Kali piece, we used the pakhawaj and for the chaal piece, we used the mridangam. That was the contrast. 

Gaurav: You just mentioned the Ardhanarishwar piece that I did with Pritam Das. The composition had eight paragraphs and we used only two. It was written for Ardhanarishwar using colour – main tujhko rang doon tu mujhko rang de. But we really wanted to stay away from anything that paints Ardhanarishwar in a particular way. That was a challenge for us – what is our voice? Then the movement becomes that (identified as male or female). Here, even when we walked, we walked as two energies. The mannerism of Shakti, Sati, Parvati and all goddesses was done by the male. At first I was going to do it with a beard but this morning, I removed that. I thought, we’re blurring the lines, so this much is fine. 

Aamrapali: In our costumes too, we chose neutral colours, we chose beige. Ekah – it’s one.  

Q: Aamrapali, you must talk about your piece where you are moving in a wave, forward and backward, showing the avartana. 

Aamrapali: The piece is titled ‘Avartini’. Kathak mein avartan ka bahut mahatva hai. We are bound by the avartana. Sometimes it is a blessing and sometimes a curse, because we must land on sam. When I was creating this piece, I wanted to show the feminine energy and the moon cycle – how are they connected? I also thought of the four seasons. Like for amavasya in the winter, she is menstruating and bleeding. There is no moon. When she starts to gather herself and repair, the new moon appears and it is spring. When she is ovulating and her best self, she is in the summer. It is full moon. And as the cycle progresses, there is the waning moon, going back to amavasya – it’s the luteal phase, back to menstruation. 

As women, we are not wired to be in the same phase every day. Our bodies are biologically wired to be in these phases and cycles. Every day, there are different emotions and moods, and the moon is also related to emotions. It’s not just related to females but is true of humans in general. 

There is this photographer who took pictures of the moon every day for 28 days and amazingly, when he combined the pictures, it showed the movement like an S. The moon, through amavasya to full moon and then no moon, moves like an S. That is what I wanted to show in the beginning. In that, I also wanted to show menstruation. And then when she is slowly growing and the moon is growing, I start the basant taal, which is the nine matra. Basant is spring, and the significance of nine months for women – childbirth, pregnancy – is obvious as a metaphor for growth. That’s why I chose nine. And even that starts with thaat, and then a bigger thaat, then a bigger thaat. The tripalli also evolves in speed, showing the growth, so that I was able to translate that in Kathak as well.  

The focus then shifts to the woman who is ovulating and begins to glow. It is known that in older times, women used to try and sync their cycles to the moon. There used to be no light in the night except moonlight, so women would try and sync their ovulation to the full moon so that they could make love in the moonlight. That’s something I was inspired by. 

Pics: Anoop Arora