Pagrav Dance Company in Aunusthan

Pagrav Dance Company’s Aunusthan is an hour long kathak taster, danced with live music in the intimate atmosphere of The Place in London…

Pagrav Dance Company in ‘Aunusthan’. © Simon Richardson

Pagrav Dance Company
Aunusthan
★★★★✰
London, The Place
16 November 2024
www.pagravdance.com
theplace.org.uk

Ah, the bliss of seeing pure dance and musicians, close to and unencumbered by the weight of trying to push the art forward or make some clever point. It’s just good, honest, joyful dance.

For those unaware of the name, Pagrav Dance Company “…promotes kathak, invigorating the form with modern context and renewed presentation, while encouraging new thinking and understanding of the discipline”. Formed nearly 20 years ago, Pagrav are based in Milton Keynes and London, tour much, and last year got Arts Council NPO (National Portfolio Organisation) status, a real badge of honour and which, more constructively, brings them public money to further their aims and deliver more. Besides performing for the public, they provide training and support emerging talent.

I’m here by word of mouth. At DanceTabs, I ran a 4-star review of Pagrav (in their production, Kattam Katti) by Lynette Halewood, and it was an unexpectedly happy coincidence to bump into Lynette in the audience last night. You know something is good when critics pay to see a show!

At The Place, they performed Aunusthan - something of a Kathak taster that Pagrav varies depending on the space, time and availability of musicians. We got a pretty maxed-out version with seven dancers, including artistic director Urja Desai Thakore, and four live musicians. The musicians are at the front sides of the stage, with two tabla players on the left, a bowed Sarangi (I think) and a santoor (or hammered dulcimer) on the right. It was fascinating to see the tabla players tune their drums using a small weight to adjust the tension and, in mid-performance, when they weren’t needed to propel the dance, softly taping and tuning their drums again. And even while playing at full pelt, they might occasionally rotate the tabla to get a slightly different sound. Good that the musicians are so much to the fore, and viewed in some lights, they are very much part of the overall movement action. And of course, the dancers augment the work of the musicians, with their ghungroos ankle bells stressing particular beats. It’s not a simple “them and us” situation betwixt dancers and musicians.

In talking about kathak, mainstream Western dance writers (like me, I suppose!) often start with the foot stamping and how grounded and ground-based it is. And in this case, it would pick up on the company name because Pagrav means “the sound of feet”. And, important though it is, that wasn’t particularly what I took away from the performance. More than anything, what jumped out was the speed and lightness of the dancers and choreography. Arms are often high and slicing the air, and the coy little standing jumps that sneak in from nowhere all make for a buoyant, uplifting feel. The speed of turns is also emphasised by the ability to stop on a dime and hold the position. There’s additional dazzle because fast turns almost seem the preferred way to get across the stage and are multiplied up, the dancers doing them in unison - not to mention the often pleasing and ever-evolving patterns.

Here is what the company says about the production: “Aunusthan is an evening of classical work which takes the audience on a journey of abstracted relationships and powerful storytelling. The production was conceived with the intention of portraying the multi-faceted nature of kathak.” Looking at the 60-minute work with my Western dance eyes, I didn’t find so much storytelling or relationships on show. However, I did enjoy the dancers’ solos, the delicately slower sections of movement, and the sinuous twisting movement of torsos. But the speed they achieved in ever-spinning entrances and exits also lingers long in the mind. It’s a full-on hour of exhilarating dance for all involved.

Goodness knows what a Kathak expert might pick up on in Aunusthan, but one of the pleasures in life is getting out of one’s silo and seeing a bigger movement world, and I’d encourage more to do so. The audience at The Place was very much of South Asian heritage and enthusiastically applauded ‘their’ dance form, lovingly presented. But Pagrav is there for us all to enjoy and share - so bluntly, I say get your act together and see them!