Sacred Love, Profane Love is a project on the gypsy legend proposed in Rovereto by the Teatro Tascabile of Bergamo, a structure that for more than twenty years has been actively involved in oriental theatre and dance, investigating possible contaminations with scenic forms belonging to other cultures. The idea underlying the triptych of shows of Sacred Love, Profane Love is to hypothesize a spectacular journey articulated on the traces of a cultural nomadism that links the tradition of Indian Kathak to Andalusian flamenco. The journey therefore starts from the desert of Rajasthan and its court dances to end in the gypsy neighborhoods of southern Andalusia. The link between Kathak and flamenco is discovered not only by recovering the accredited theory according to which the gypsies emigrated from India to Europe at the time of the Muslim invasion, but by attempting an experiment that, by juxtaposing the two spectacular forms live, highlights their stylistic assonances and anthropological connections. The triptych opens with Katha Vachak (The Dance of the Storytellers). The show is presented by Kadamb - Centre for Dance & Music of Kumudini Lakhia. Kumudini Lakhia is an elderly lady who today represents an institution in the development of Kathak. A former dancer, she stopped performing when she decided to found the Kadamb Centre in Ahmedabad to train Kathak dancers. With the Kadamb company she has produced more than 50 shows, presented in India and in various parts of the world, personally obtaining important recognitions including the Award conferred on her by the city of Ahmedabad in 1997, on the occasion of the 50th anniversary of Indian Independence. Kathak is one of the seven main forms of Indian dance. It is performed to Hindustani music, from Northern India, and is the only dance in the country linked to Muslim culture. The root of the word “kathak,” “katha,” means story, a term that gives the original performers of kathak the role of storytellers. Teatro Tascabile points out that Kathak is also related to Ras Lila, a form of popular theater that dealt with the divine love between Krishna and Radha. The danced parts of Ras Lila are a sort of expansion of the base of mimed gestures of the kathak storytellers. The dancers’ performances are accompanied by two orders of instruments: the saranghi, a bowed instrument, and the small tabla drums. The sound also derives significantly from the approximately two hundred ghunghru, the bells worn by the dancers around their ankles. Close dialogues are created between the dancers and the tabla players that are articulated on the rhythmic contrast between instruments, singing, and the famous variations of the feet. These dialogues are part of nritta, pure dance, while the pantomime parts belong to abhìnaya, and see the dancer no longer concentrating on the movements of the feet, but on the upper part of the body, in particular the face and eyes. Renzo Vescovi, director of the Teatro Tascabile in Bergamo, chose Kumudini Lakhia’s Khatak, after meeting the artist at a demonstration conference on kathak held in Madras. Fascinated by this lady of the Indian scene, he followed her to her Center in Ahmedabad, where kathak is taught in its different levels and developments to many students. Antonio El Pipa, a flamenco dancer who brings the show Duende to Rovereto, comes from Jerez, Spain. Vescovi explains: “Flamenco dancers are divided into the “academic” ones whose style is also based on the technique of classical Spanish ballet and the bailores whose way of dancing is clearly linked to the gypsy and gypsy legend of flamenco. El Pipa is a pure bailor, he learned to dance from his grandmother Tia Juana, a legend in Jerez. Duende is taken from a work called Generaciones, in which flamenco has the face and style of three generations, that of Tia Juana, that of Antonio and that of a little girl. With El Pipa he flamenco still has the stamp of a dance that seals the triumph against adversity, the fight against anti-gypsy culture”.
The third show of the project Sacred Love, Profane Love is entitled Le Orme: the Kumudini Lakhia company, El Pipa company and the Teatro Tascabile di Bergamo - Accademia delle Forme Sceniche interact. Vescovi again: “It is a sort of ghost show, designed to help the audience discover the affinities between khatak and flamenco. I would like the spectators to experience a journey of “agnition”, discovering the similarities, beyond the costumes, of the movements of the hands, ankles, feet”. The show begins with an introduction by the Teatro Tascabile on mythical India, a sort of journey through time to recover those true and false archetypes that belong to the collective imagination. To then attempt a real experience of contamination between flamenco and kathak, both through musical elaborations between the two cultures, and with moments of stylistic crossbreeding, in which, for example, kathak is danced with flamenco boots, while the gypsy dance is danced barefoot. About thirty artists are involved in a “rhythmic foray” that is not casual, but rather derives from research on nomadic civilization that certainly deserves to be explored in depth.
