Ankur Bora
When you push out to new frontiers, you
will inevitably gain new insights and perspectives on the world around you and
within you. The odds are in your favor when you take daring chances and when
you step out of yourselves. When you extend your horizon and become more
productive allowing yourself to grow and push yourself to do things you
wouldn’t normally do, life surprisingly becomes more interesting. There are people who have incredible zest for
life, willing to go that extra mile in following their passion and henceforth
make life worth living.
Such is the story of Anwesa
Mahanta. Dedicated to the tradition of Sattriya at a very young age, she met her mentor Shri
Ghanakanta Bora Muktiyar , a Sangeet Natak Akademi Awardee, when she was only 9
years old. Her teacher was deeply
influential in the early life of Anwesa and his mentoring led her to a new mission.
“He is a different kind of teacher – a maestro who inspires student to think
and learn. I still marvel at how well his teachings have held up over the
years”, Anwesa joyfully shares her
anecdotes on her formative days. “Belonging to a sattra , I had been groomed
with its philosophical content by my parents and grandparents, and I perceived
the world and its surroundings with that. I was blessed to have the revered
teacher as my Adhyapak who had helped me in every step to explore and
understand the nuances of the tradition in a different light.” Her teacher
imbibed in her with a strong belief on the sacredness of Sattriya dance – “Every
space in which you perform is sanctified by your dance and hence it transcends
into a sacred space where Gods are implored and you as devotees offer your
salutations to the Divinity through the testaments of great saints.”
This very essence of Sattriya and the great ideals of the tradition set the
stage for Anwesa’s greater work. Her PhD thesis titled "Traditions of
Performing Arts in Assam and the role of Sattras" is based on her close association
with these premier centers of Vaisnava art and learning. Her research takes a
holistic view of this performance tradition: its sustenance, practice, changing
contexts and the social appreciation of the art form. Anwesa has come to
recognize that Sattriya is not just a dance form – it is a way of
life. The rich histories, philosophy, literature, the wide range of artistic
practices associated with the Sattriya dance are the roots holding the art form
over five centuries. The bhakats (monks) of the Sattras are the pillars who as
the practitioners and exponents brought the tradition to the masses. As she saw
it, the Sattriya dance is a social phenomenon and it is integrally connected to
the land, to the heritage and to the community. Thus ,Anwesa brings forth a new
dimension in the pursuit of her doctoral progarmme. Anwesa is also a prolific writer and she has
been a blog author since 2008. A keen observer of Bhakti tradition ,she is at home with the
languages of their melody and rhythm , movement and cadence at both physical
and conceptual levels. In one section, in lively writings, she describes a
sequence in exquisite details ; she then
moves on with seeming effortlessness to an analysis of the dance significance
in the education and socializing of young children at the Sattras.
Anwesa has been raised to think that exploration,
observation and perception are crucial to living a full intellectual and
artistic life. Shri Ghanakanta Bora was her mentor, not so much in what he
said, but in how he lived his life and looked at the world. Paced at the
monastic order of the Kamalabari Sattra when he was only 4 years old, her
teacher was elevated as the ‘Barbayan’, the highest honor that the Sattra can
offer to a practicing percussionist cum dancer. The devastation that the
Kamalabari Sattra was subjected to, due to erosion by the riotous Brahmaputra
and its translocation brought him to Guwahati. The disruption, though, took him
to carve new lines in the horizon of
Sattriya dance. Of epochal importance to young Anwesa were these ideals
of her teachers which she would carry with her for the rest of her career -
that an artist’s greatest success is not found in a single rave
performance, but , instead , in the way
he or she uses that experience to keep moving forward – to evolve , learn and work.
Over the next twenty years, Anwesa continued to follow the
trajectory that had been launched under the able guidance of her teacher. She has been an active
performer presenting Sattriya dance in its solo form as well as in
choreographic presentations of her own. She has performed extensively
across India and also made a series of trips abroad including Malaysia, Hong
Kong, U.K, Sri Lanka, France, New Zealand appearing at many
prestigious dance festivals. She has also been conducting workshops and
also presented scholarly research papers in various prestigious symposiums and
conferences of the country and outside sharing the aesthetics and poetics
of Sattriya dance, music theatre and allied traditions. Anwesa has
been awarded with the prestigious national award, Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva
Puraskar from Sangeet Natak Akademi for the year 2013-14 for her contributions
in the field of Sattriya . She is
also one of the founders of Kalpa – an organization for the advancement of
literature, art, culture, and social harmony. Through Kalpa , she has been
working for the promotion of Indian dance and its relevance amidst the youth,
who are not acquainted with the classical music and dance traditions. It has
been a spiritual quest for Anwesa
as Sattriya dance has become a chosen path of devotion.
Her career in Sattriya dance,
music and theatre has dazzled when Anwesa was recently selected for
the Charles Wallace fellowship at the Queen's
University Belfast. The Fellowship is among the most coveted of scholarly
honors and provides a golden opportunity for researchers, artists, students,
academicians to pursue their work in the UK. For Anwesa, it is
the pinnacle of an incredible journey. Being among other artists at Belfast gave her a deeper
sense that what she was doing mattered and was actually worth doing. At Belfast, the University organizes India
Lecture series delivered by distinguished personalities from India in
their respective area of specializations. This
year she has become a fixture in this program “It was a great honor for
me to present my work here in this series and most importantly refer to cultural
artifacts of Assam in relation to Performance Aesthetics. As a token of my
sincere thanks to my land and its rich culture, I strive to bring into light
some of the lesser-known art forms of Assam to International platform”. Last month , Anwesa
was honored at the prestigious Nehru
Centre, London for her illustrated demonstration and narrative of Sattriya
dance tradition passing through several generations.
A person can reach the zenith of any
profession or avocation she/ chooses , if she/he is willing to keep striving towards
her his destination. There is window of opportunities out there for everyone. Anwesa
Mahanta was captivated by the beauty and magnificence of Sattriya dance at a very young age; focused and determined,
she has been able to reach far away shores to carry the message of her teacher through
her spell-bounding performance all over the globe. She set her sights high, as
high as the stars – this year, she is soaring to new heights, and inspiring
everyone around her along the way.
