They were a family of modest means, and so she used his beautiful voice to get admission in the Grace Church boys’ choir. “His mother wanted him to have an education since he had such an inquisitive mind about science. Her father was a boy soprano, “a soloist with a beautiful voice” she explains as she shows me his picture. It also comes filtered through a life long association with the arts, and a family history of artistic training. Janaki’s commitment to Kathak dance comes despite, and has survived many forms of dance training by masters, including intensive ballet training and training in the Cunningham technique, for which she won a scholarship, and was taught by none other than Merce Cunningham himself. “Oh it’s never just about me-the art is very big for just me to carry alone” says Janaki in a soft voice and with gentleness of demeanour. This kind of credit to dancers, whom choreographers often see as pawns in the process of the choreographic design, is another self effacement. In the programme notes that accompany her production, Janaki usually attributes the choreography to “Janaki Patrik with the Dancers”.
In a time of dance companies going by the, name of their founders, this is an unusual deviance.
Since its founding in 1978, Birju Maharaj’s student, Janaki Patrik, has been running the company Kathak Ensemble and Friends.
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