Sattriya will always be a concert art form: Dr Indira PP Bora

When you breathe, you should feel the music, feel the beats,” says Dr Indira PP Bora. The first female artist to receive the Sangeet Natak Akademi award in Sattriya dance in 1996, Bora is a leading pioneer of the dance form.

Born in 1943, Bora together with her daughter Dr Meneka PP Bora, form the power couple of Sattriya Nrittya, taking the dance form to diverse platforms in India to New Zealand, US to Vietnam. In a rarified artistic field, where dance and drama was considered a taboo for women, Bora’s efforts are seen as a revival move for women in dance and music. Sattriya, which started under the patronage of Srimanta Shankardev, was brought out to a larger audience in the late 1950s. The structure of the dance repertoire was strengthened with the introduction of solo choreographies, encompassing spatial dimensions, visual design and classical body language suitable for modernday proscenium and cosmopolitan audiences without altering the fundamental framework of the dance form and thus conforming to the Assamese art and culture.

“Unfortunately in the classical art world, we are losing the values and also the audience,” says Menaka, the first affiliated artiste at the University of Oxford and a winner of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Yuva Puraskar. “We have also been doing a lot of national and international work for the cause of Assamese Arts as a Global Brand.”

Talk about help from the government, and the picture doesn’t get any better. “We have patronage but no propagation. Isn’t it disheartening that only meagre funds are invested in cultural projects?” asks Menaka.

“Sattriya is and always will be a community art form and will never be a concert art form. What we now need is to keep its identity intact,” explains Bora. “Perhaps a little all-round effort can help keep a five-decade-long legacy alive.”