Land Acknowledgement

Concept and Direction: Joanna de Souza

Musicians: 

Music Production, recording, mixing, mastering & Tabla: Ed Hanley

Esraj & Soprano Saxophone: Jonathan Kay

Vocals: Srilal Fonkesa

Recitation: Joanna de Souza

Solo Dancers in order of appearance: 

Ameera Nimjee, Kiran Phull, Mihaela Dirlea, Aarti Anand, Amrit Phull

The Late Pandit Chitresh Das, whose life work and shared inspiration continues to guide.

the SPECIAL INTEREST group: Rebecca Campbell, Ian de Souza, Jim Bish, Rakesh Tewari, and special guest Rob Gusevs.

Dave Lang and all at the Tranzac.

• Jane Morris: Poetry Concept and Composition:

Jane has loved nature since she can remember, and kathak since 1993 when she began classes with her teacher/mentor Joanna de Souza. It is a delight to put them together. In addition to continuously studying Kathak, creating new writing and choreography and occasionally performing, Jane loves teaching beginner and intermediate classes for our school.

• Ed Hanley

Ed has studied tabla for over 30 years with masters including Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri, Pandit Anindo Chatterjee, and Taalyogi Suresh Talwalkar in Canada, the USA, and has been on more than 10 journeys to India. He has also studied Carnatic drumming traditions with Sri Karaikudi Mani and Dr. Trichy Sankaran in Chennai and Toronto. 

As co-artistic director of the Canadian world music ensemble Autorickshaw, Ed has been nominated for three JUNO Awards, won a Canadian Folk Music award, and the grand prize in the world music category of the John Lennon Songwriting Contest.

From the Stockholm Jazz Festival and the Jaipur Heritage Festival, to Massey Hall in Toronto and Joe’s Pub in New York City, Ed has been a featured performer at prominent music festivals and concert halls in Europe, India, the USA, and across Canada.  Recently, Ed appeared on Jonathan Goldsmith’s soundtrack for the documentary To Kill a Tiger, by director Nisha Pahuja, which premiered at TIFF 2022, and was nominated for an Academy Award for Best Documentary Feature Film.

• Jonathan Kay

Jonathan Kay is a professional jazz saxophonist from Toronto, Canada. In search of non-western ways of musical knowing, he moved to Kolkata and Santiniketan for 10 years to learn North Indian Raga music in the guru-shishya parampara with vocalist Shantanu Bhattacharyya, and esraj player Abir Singh Khangura. He is the first to render the full form of vocal raga music (vilambit khayal) on the shrutiphone, a self-customized saxophone to play in raga temperament (tuning). He also is among the few performing boro esraj players, playing in the tantra-kari style in the lineage of Ranadhir Roy. 

Being recognized for outstanding cultural achievements by the High Commissioners of Canada in India and Bangladesh, Jonathan performed at The Canadian High Commission in New Delhi in 2012 and 2014, and in Dhaka, Bangladesh in 2013.

Jonathan has also been blessed to learn from and collaborate with many of India’s greatest maestros including; Ajoy Chakraborty, Rashid Khan, Dhruba Ghosh, Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, Bickram Ghosh, Tanmoy Bose, Subhankar Banerjee, Tejendra Majumdar, Ronu Majumdar, Subhen Chatterjee, Subhajyoti Guha, Sougata Roy Chowdhury, Prattyush Banerjee and Ranajit Sengupta.

www.jonathankay.ca

• Joanna de Souza

Twice Dora Award nominated Joanna de Souza, received a Master’s Degree in kathak dance through Prayag Sangit Samiti, Allahabad, India. Her study began in 1978, under her guru, the late Pandit Chitresh Das. Joanna is respected internationally as a dancer, choreographer, and is a much sought-after teacher.

Named one of the "leading Indian classical dancers in Canada" - INDIA TODAY Magazine, she has represented Canada at the World Performing Arts Festival in Lahore, Pakistan, and the Romerias de Mayo festival in Holguin, Cuba.

In Toronto, she co-founded M-DO/KathakToronto which is home to dance classes, master classes and workshops, at the highest artistic level. Her dance company Chhandam, has toured nationally and internationally, bringing their innovative approach of Kathak, to a wide audience, and in 2018 Chhandam in collaboration with choreographer/dancer Misty Wensel, toured India with their collaborative work BARDO.

She was a musician and dancer with the acclaimed Toronto Tabla Ensemble from 1993-2010, and has taught across Canada, Trinidad, the US and India.

She is the recipient of Angikam’s Dr.Maya Rao Award, for recognition of her body of innovative kathak choreography.

Solo dancers:

Ameera Nimjee is a musician, dancer, scholar, and educator. She has studied kathak with Joanna De Souza since 2007. Her formal study of music started on the classical piano and she holds a Bachelor of Music and ARCT in classical piano performance. Her immersion in the performing arts began early in her childhood as a member of the Ismaili Muslim community, from which she derives much of her intellectual curiosity about the global diversity of Muslim arts. Currently, Ameera is an assistant professor in the Departments of Music; Theater Studies; and South Asian Studies at Yale University, where she teaches courses on music, dance, and the study of culture. 

Kiran Phull is a life-long student of Joanna de Souza, and began studying Kathak in 1990 at the age of 5. She joined the Chhandam Dance Company in 2000, and has performed nationally and internationally as a Company member and soloist. With her immersive training comes a deep understanding of rhythm, nuances of movement in pure dance and abhinaya, and the relationship between dance and live musical accompaniment. Most recently, she joined the Company's 2018 production BARDO in India with contemporary dancer Misty Wensel. Since 2014, Kiran has lived and worked in London, England.

Mihaela Dirlea (Mish) was born in Romania and moved to Canada at the age of 15. She has loved dance since she was a child, but has only studied formally since 2011, when she was privileged to become part of this beautiful Kathak community in Toronto. She is honoured and grateful to be able to share her love for Kathak with you tonight. Today's work is her first own solo choreography under the invaluable mentorship of Joanna de Souza. 

Aarti Anand has been studying Kathak under Joanna De Souza and is trained in Bharatanatyam and Carnatic vocal music. Aarti has given several Kathak performances at M-DO/Kathak Toronto’s showcases as well as other shows in Toronto, including a comprehensive, traditional Kathak solo in 2022. While Aarti holds a Master’s degree in Law, she has always pursued opportunities to involve herself in dance and music. She currently assists Joannadi in teaching Kathak classes at M-DO. Joannadi’s musicality, technique and agility in dance as well as her passionate teaching of Kathak constantly fuel Aarti’s love for the art form. 

Amrit Kaur Phull began studying Kathak in 1996 under the instruction of Joanna de Souza. She has since performed with the Chhandam Dance Company, including on the India tour of Bardo, a contemporary Kathak production. Passionate about the form’s rhythmic complexity and lyrical movement, Amrit leads adult Kathak classes in Toronto, sharing her deep appreciation for the tradition while supporting new dancers.

the SPECIAL INTEREST group brings a new rhythm to songs of hope & struggle, Infusing songs from civil rights, gospel, folk and protest movements with elements of folk, blues, rock, R&B, jazz, reggae & ska.

Forged in the chaotic violence of the expanding universe

Billions of years ago

In a swirl of elemental interaction

Hydrogen and oxygen bonded

Water was born

Life soon followed

Dancers: Aarti Anand, Tippi Chai, Mihaela Dirlea, Sucheta Heble, Natasha Manji, Jane Morris, Mamta Pranjivan, Vibhu Sharma

Music: Fratres - Arvo Part 

Choreography: Joanna de Souza

This set of compositions begins with a Ganapati Sloka that shows some of the characteristics of Ganesh. He moves slowly and majestically. The rest of the repertoire in this opening section of the program follows suit. Peshkaar, variations of aamad, salaami, and parans are all presented to illustrate the elegance of kathak in a vilambit laya or slow-speed of dhamaar, which is often explored only in its vilambit form in the Chhandam/M-DO style.

Dancer: Ameera Nimjee

Musicians: Ed Hanley, Jonathan Kay, Joanna de Souza

Shaped by the slow grinding of glaciation

Over thousands of years

Channeling through the leftover debris

Our waterways formed

They came to life and flourished

Life has always come from water

Dancers: Aanshi Gandhi, Disha Sachdeva,  Kirandeep Kaur Chahal, Prachi Patel, Parul Monga, Praseeda, Versha Rangaswamy Zaria Haider 

Music: Vilambith - Santosh Naidu: tabla; Joanna de Souza:  harmonium, recitation

Choreography: Amrit Phull & Joanna de Souza

Part 1: Waxing

A condensed nritt solo in a rhythmic cycle of 8.5 beats, incorporating elements of peshkar, paran, and intricate, improvised footwork.

Part 2: Waning

Tarana in sade aat matra: melodic compositional piece showcasing nuanced movement, footwork, and pirouettes.

Dancer: Kiran Phull

Music: Joanna de Souza: tarana arrangement, Christopher Hale: sitar, 

Santosh Naidu: tabla, Ian de Souza: recording

This piece is a story of grief: our personal grief, our collective grief and the grief of our ancestors. "Grief and love are sisters, woven together from the beginning. Their kinship reminds us that there is no love that does not contain loss, and no loss that is not a reminder of the love we carry for what we once held close.[...] When we welcome it, it carries us to the depths of our humanity." Francis Weller

Dancer, concept and choreography: Mihaela Dirlea (Mish)

Music: Grigore Lese, Wolfgang Ohmer, and Yann Tiersen

Magic happens when water flows slowly overland

Waves of life come and go

Single cells swim in the waters

Little mimics of the universe

They bond together in a dazzling display of new forms

Shape shifting into plants and animals

Swimming as one

Diving apart

A complex choreography of life and death

Grief and joy

Endless change

Life dances in the waters of the universe

Dancers: Amyna Kanji, Alisha Thawer, Nawrin Sultana, Souraiya Kassam,

Shivani Mathur ,Tamanna Bhardwaj, Vidyashree Balagangadhariah,

Myuri Komaragiri, Divya Vishwanadh

Music: Life and Beauty - Evan Ritchie: percussion programming; Ian de Souza: bass, music composition; Andrea Koziol: vocals; Joanna de Souza: recitation

Choreography: Joanna de Souza with Aarti Anand

Hear the call of running water

Gather by the river’s edge

Dha dhin da dhin dhin dha

Dance with nature, sing her song

Dancers: Namrata Malhotra, Reshma Jose, Ria Kapoor, Sadaf Ahmed, Divya Vijay, Shughla Ismail, Sana Zehra, Naina Khanna 

Music: In the Forest - George Ruckert:   Composer & violin; Christopher Ris: sarod; Pandit Swapan Chaudhuri: tabla; Joanna de Souza: recitation

Choreography: Jane Morris 

*Archival Recording Chitresh Das Dance Company 1981

A traditional Kathak solo in Jhaptal, a 10-beat rhythmic cycle, exploring different tempos, moods and within the Vilambit Laya, starting with a traditional introductory composition called Utthan.

Dancer: Aarti Anand

Music: Ed Hanley, Jonathan Kay, Joanna de Souza

Reeling from the onslaught of human industrialization

In just a hundred years 

Our waterways died

One by one they fell

Choked by human waste and folly

Devalued, driven underground

In clear water we see ourselves

In dirty water, only loss

Blessing water does not make it clean

Dirty water is not holy

Dirty skin, unclean soul

We buried them as we bury our dead

Below our dead, should they be in the way

Forsaken then forgotten

They flow on in the dark

Captive streams of faded glory

Faint remembrance of rivers past

Waiting for a diviner to pass by

Waiting for half a chance

Dancers: Tanisha Chakma, Diviya Muthu, Shreya Prasad 

Ashmita Roy, Anupriya Panday

Music: Ashik - El Mahdy Jr; River Death: Joanna de Souza - recitation, 

Matt DelCiampo, Ian de Souza - composition 

Choreography: Joanna de Souza with Aarti Anand

Nature needs no permission

Just opportunity

A diviner passes by

Opens her veil

Senses the water below

Flowing lifeless in the dark

She digs away the dirt

Unburies the river

Breathes deeply, and smiles

Dancers: Sandhya Gopalakrishnan, Priyanka Shertukde, Jessica Thadickal, 

Akanksha Patnaik, Tanurina Datta, Anita Katakkar, ⁠Priti Anand, Nishtha Sharma 

Music: Evan Ritchie: drum programming; Santosh Naidu: tabla and effected tabla; Joanna de Souza: MalletKat, recitation; Ian de Souza: Bass, music programming

Choreography: Joanna de Souza

Amrit explores themes of energy, rhythm, and connection beginning with Dekho Durga, a song and kavit (poem) in madhya laya (medium tempo), showcasing the goddess Durga’s graceful, dancing form, a striking contrast to her fierce, demon-slaying persona. This is followed by a series of gintis, which are numeric patterns that test the artist’s precision and rhythmic capacities, in conversation with the tabla's dynamic syllables.

The piece transitions into Bholi Bhali Radhika, portraying Krishna’s playful mischief as he catches Radha’s wrist, brought to life through expressive gestures (abhinaya). As the tempo increases to drut laya (fast tempo), Amrit performs a pairing of gat nikas, illustrating the graceful walks of Krishna and Radha. The solo continues with kite taka thun compositions, vibrant rhythmic sequences rooted in pakhawaj syllables. 

Dancer: Amrit Phull  

Sawaal Javaab  Call/Response 

Amrit is joined by Aarti, Mish, Kiran and Ameera for a joyful rhythmic percussive exchange called sawaal jawab.

Music: Ed Hanley; Jonathan Kay: soprano saxophone; Joanna de Souza 

Hear the call of running water

Gather by the river’s edge

She basks in Sunlight, breathes fresh air

Nature notices and the wild moves in

Latent power unleashed

Dormant seeds springing alive

As if by magic

But nature is much more than magic

Opportunity knocks, nature answers

Opens her door to the wild and the wonderful

Maybe wonder alone makes it all worthwhile