Nrityagram Dance Village

This weekend I visited the Nrityagram Dance Village located in Hessaraghatta, about 1.5 hours outside of Bangalore.

Nrityagram is India's first modern Gurukul (residential school) set up by Odissi danseuese Protima Gauri in 1990. The village houses the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble -- they live and work in the village, where dance is a way of life, where strict training in many forms punctuates their days, where dancers, musicians, and choreographers live together, and artists from many different disciplines are invited to come and collaborate in the artistic process.

The village was constructed by master architect, Gerard da Cunha and won the "Best Rural Architecture" award in 1991. To raise funds to run Nrityagram, a tourist resort Kuteeram was built in 1992. The resort is now run by the Taj Hotels chain. Trivia: Gerard da Cunha was married to Arundhati Roy, author of "The God of Small Things"; they divorced after 4 years of marriage.

Protima Gauri died in 1998 (click on the link above to read more about her -- she was only 50 when she died -- led a very interesting life). One of my co-workers is a classical Indian dancer and has done some training at the village -- she told me that the school hasn't been quite the same since Protima's death.

The Dream

"I dream of building a community of dancers in a forsaken place amidst nature. A place where nothing exists, except dance. A place where you breathe, eat, sleep, dream, talk, imagine - dance.

A place where all the five senses can be refined to perfection. A place where dancers drop negative qualities such as jealousy, small-mindedness, greed, and malice to embrace their colleagues as sisters and support each other in their journey towards becoming dancers of merit.

A place called Nrityagram."

-- Protima Gauri (October 12, 1948 - August 18, 1998)