BOSTON — Boston fans of Indian dance recently received a southern treat.

The New England Marathi Mandal presented a unique Bharatnatyam recital on February 9 that featured the Florida-based dancer, Aparna Matange.

Matange, a disciple of Sucheta Chapekar — winner of the Indian government's prestigious 2007 Sangeet Natak Academy Annual Award for Classical Dance — led the recital that used north Indian Hindustani music in place of the south Indian carnatic music that is traditionally performed with the dance form.

Dressed in a beautiful olive green and orange costume, Matange delivered an energetic 90-minute performance of eight dance items. Some of the pieces were interpretive, others traditional, and some paid homage to Shiva and his divine consort Parvati as well as to eight governing deities.

One of the first few disciples of Dr. Chapekar, Matange has learned Nrityaganga, a style of Bharatnatyam that uses Marathi and Hindi language lyrics to reach out to Marathi language speakers. She currently runs a dance school in Florida called NrityaSurabhi, and considers it her mission to popularize the Nrityaganga dance form.
Matange spoke to INDIA New England about her career as a dancer and dance teacher.

Talk about yourself and your dance school in Florida.

I am originally from Mumbai, Maharashtra and moved to the United States 13 years back. I started teaching Bhartanatyam right away after coming here. Four years later, I also took up a job in a software engineering company... My academic background includes a master's degree in areobiology, a branch of the discipline of life sciences.

Do you come from a family of artists?

My parents were keenly interested in arts but never had the opportunity to learn and pursue their interests. My mother made sure that I got dance lessons when I was very young and I stayed with the practice and performance of the art form even after my graduation known as Arangetram. Usually, graduating dance students consider the Arangetram graduation performance as a full-stop to their careers in dance. In my view, learning starts after Arangetram. [Last year marked the 20th anniversary of Matange's Arangetram.]
   
What motivated your teacher, Dr. Chapekar to consider using north Indian music as accompaniment to Bharatnatyam, which has traditionally always relied on south Indian music?

Audiences in Maharashtra faced a communication gap with the Bharatnatyam dance form since the music and lyrics were completely based on South Indian languages and music. Dr. Chapekar devised a method of reaching out to them by deciding to use Marathi lyrics in the musical compositions. She researched Tanjore Marathi compositions and incorporated some of them in her dance item repertoire. Her teachers Guru Parvati Kumar and Guru Kitappa Pillai helped her in the process and brought the compositions to life. Dr. Chapekar decided to explore the use of Hindustani music as the base for expressing the Marathi lyrics, and thus began the journey of Nrityaganga.

Nrityaganga uses the Pakhawaj instrument instead of the more widely accepted tabla for providing the rhythm, why?

Pakhawaj is considered the father of tabla and with its deep resonating sound that creates an echo, it enhances the music for the Bharatnatyam dance form. My teacher, Dr. Chapekar, initially tried using the tabla for the rhythmic aspect, but the exercise did not work out perfectly well to create the sound patterns used in the footwork of the Bharatnatyam dance form. Her husband, the late Dr. Anil Chapekar, a mechanical engineer by academic training gave her enormous help in visualizing the problem, analyzing it by breaking the process down and translating each and every Adavu that Bharatnatyam uses into Pakhawaj language. Even though he did not play the Pakhawaj instrument himself, he worked closely with Pakhawaj players to tailor the Pakhawaj language constructs to work with Bhartanatyam. We owe a lot to him for this contribution.