Kathak Dance - Bratati Saha
Sarode - Soumya Chakraverty
Tabla - Debu Nayak
This Chhandayan Baithak Concert will be presented by the Virginia chapter of Chhandayan. It will feature a dance Kathak recital by Bratati Saha and a Sarode recital by Soumya Chakraverty. Debu Nayak will accompany both on the tabla.
Admission Free
Bratati Saha
Bratati Saha is an accomplished artist, educator, and performer of the Indian classical dance form, Kathak. She has been pursuing the Lucknow Gharana of Kathak for the last two decades. Also, She is the founder & artistic director of Arpan Dance Academy, VA, U.S.A. https://arpandance.weebly.com/
Bratati started to learn Kathak at the age of four under Guru Lakhan Nandi. With this initial establishment, Guru Santosh Maharaj groomed her up under the tender care and extraordinary training of Kathak Dance.
At the age of fourteen, she had completed her Nritya Visharad in dance from Banga Bharati. Banga Bharati which awarded her with a silver medal for outstanding performance in Kathak. Also, she did her second bachelor degree in Kathak dance from Pracheen Kala Kendra and was awarded with a merit performance.
From then she has presented numerous Kathak dance performance in different parts of India and abroad.
She has the had the privilege to learn Kathak from renowned maestros, such as Vidushi Madhumita Roy, Guru Santosh Maharaj, Dr. Ranjana Srivastava and Pandit Birju Maharaj. Bratati Saha has been invited to present solo performances at prestigious events in the nation and internationally, such as Indo-German Society in Germany, the 2007 International Women’s Peace Conference in TX, Wolf Trap, the Kennedy Memorial Museum in TX, the Indian Embassy, 33 Ambassador Ball, along with outstanding performances in India, such as the Ghaat Sandhya, Varanasi, Gyanmancha Kolkata etc.
Currently, she is a Chairperson of IDEA (Indian dance educators association) in D.C. Metropolitan Area http://ideadancers.org/
She is very clear about her objectives during her performance to portray the diverse Indian Traditional rituals and aesthetic values that form the very core of extraordinary Indian culture.
Further, she is much committed to developing Indian Dance. She believes that dance is a form of self-expression besides being self-realization and considers that dance is one of the many advanced forms of universal communication in it exquisite linguistics of performance recital. But all the same, she feels that there is much more to be accomplished and has realized and need to develop the form of dance further in order to contribute towards making this special art of communication rather easily accessible to the world, at large.
Awards & Acknowledgements:
• 2020 Winner of the India Monsoon Festival dance competition in the Young Talent Artist Category. From the event, she has been honored to perform as a guest artist at the Bharat Sanskriti Utsab 2020 at Kolkata India, and is Privileged to Participate at the International Festival of Thailand/Dubai.
• Since the Corvid outbreak, she has held public masterclasses to continue pursuing performing arts. I led the "Learn from the Master Series" Kathak segment – conducted by Indian Embassy, Washington DC, USA
• Won World dance competition – PG Parks and Recreation and performed solo at Public Playhouse.
Soumya Chakraverty – Sarode
Based in Washington DC, Soumya is an established Sarod player who proudly carries the mantle of the Shahjahanpur Gharana, one of the oldest surviving lineages in instrumental music in northern India.
He took up the Sarode at an early age under the guidance of Pt. Samarendra Nath Sikdar, a disciple of the legendary Sarode maestro, Pt. Radhika Mohan Moitra. The playing style of this gharana, has a unique blend of the Rababiya (derived from the Rabab) and Gayaki (derived from Hindustani vocal music) styles.
Soumya blossomed as a young artist on All India Radio Calcutta between 1990 and 1995. During a brief stint in Australia for a couple of years in the nineties while pursuing his MBA, he truly established himself as a mature instrumentalist, and also began to collaborate with other forms of world music.
For nearly two decades, Soumya has been performing throughout the US, as well as touring Australia and Mexico. He has performed in major cities such as Cleveland, New York, Princeton, Seattle, and his home town of Washington DC, drawing packed audiences and earning rave reviews. In addition to pure Hindustani he continues to work with other music genres such Classical Carnatic (south Indian), flamenco, jazz and latin American percussion. His recent concert and interview at the Library of Congress has gone into the archives of this prestigious institution. Other performances of note, include Hindustani-Carnatic Jugalbandi at the Embassy of India in Washington DC, a collaboration with Ghazal in a program series titled From Ghalib to Gulzar, and a fusion project combining Rabindrasangeet (Tagore songs), Hindusthani classical music, classical Jazz, and West African percussion in a concert titled ‘Sea Thy Melody’. He recently returned to the US from a concert tour of India, Australia and New Zealand where he performed extensively throughout.
Despite having a regular career in banking and risk management, Soumya’s love and passion in music pushes him to continue to exploring new frontiers and challenges.
Soumya’s website: http://sarodia.com/generation/soumya-chakraverty/
Debu Nayak
Devapriya Nayak (Debu) was born in West Bengal, India, and began learning tabla at the age of three from his grandfather, Chaudhury Kausalya Nandan, who was an accomplished pakhawaj and tabla player of the Punjab Gharana. Later, Debu became a disciple of Pt. Radhakanta Nandi of the Benaras Gharana. In 1981, Debu came to the US to pursue higher studies and continued his tabla taalim from Maestros like Ustad Zakir Hussain, Pandit Anindo Chattergee and Pt. Samir Chatterjee.
Currently Debu remains a Ganda Bandha shishya of Pt. Samir Chatterjee. Debu is an accomplished soloist and accompanist. He has performed with renowned artists like Pt. Vinayak Torvi, Pt. Ramesh Mishra, Ustad Fahimuddin Dagar, Habib Wali Mohammad, Asif Ali Khan, Shahanaz Begum, Gaurav Mazumdar, Partha Bose, Mitali Banerjee-Bhawmik, Tulika Ghosh and many others.
Recently, his tabla was featured in a collaborative effort of Indian Classical Music and Jazz album titled Probe. Debu, along with the members of Probe, have also performed at the Smithsonian Institution and at the Kennedy center Eisenhour theater.
He is also an active participant/teacher of the Washington DC Chapter of Chhandayan, a tabla school dedicated to the promotion of tabla and Indian Classical Music in the Washington DC metro area.
His new CD is called 3D – three Disciples CD is available at Chhandayan store and Tabla Rising is also available from tablaguy.com.