‘Dance gives me a sense of belonging and I dance to be free.’
These are the words of Kathak dancer and choreographer Nighat Chaudhry, who has become the name of Pakistan as a Kathak dance artist around the world.
Nighat holds an MA in Dance Technique Pedagogy from Middlesex University London and has also been honored with the ‘Pride of Performance’ award in Pakistan.
Born in Lahore, Nighat Chaudhry moved to London with her family at the age of one year, where she spent her childhood and boyhood.
As a boy, he met the famous dance artist of that time, Naheed Siddiqui, who inspired him to enter the world of dance.
Initially, he learned ballet dance, but Kathak dance, which has an oriental flavor, made him his guru.
He says that in olden times men used to perform Kathak and play the role of women because women were not allowed to do it.
According to Nighat: ‘Men used to be Kathak Kars meaning story tellers. You cannot associate any form of art with gender discrimination because art is for everyone.’
He further said that Kathak is not just his hobby but his passion and it holds a lot of importance in his life.
‘Kathak not only nourished me, but also brought depth to me because of Kathak. It not only gave me an opportunity to know the world and people but also made me known. It aligned me and alignment is an important part of spirituality. By becoming one, you are cut off from everything. become free from everything.’
He added: ‘We have not embraced Kathak the way it should have been embraced. Kathak is an expression, an art form and makes an artist whereas we associated it with Mujra.’
According to him, now more people are interested in it, accepting it and this awareness among people is coming because of social media, especially YouTube. “We should be grateful to social media, which reintroduced classical dance.”
She said: ‘I want all the girls who come to me to develop their femininity. Today’s woman has become very independent and has started to live a manly life to some extent.’
Nighat Chaudhary said that he did his Masters in Dance Pedagogy from Middle Six University in London. ‘I worked on body politics, I researched different forms of dance, especially the relationship between dance and spirituality, dance technique, dance circles. My research thesis is titled ‘Dancing the Female Body in Pakistani Society’.
‘I had to find out what is the position of the female body in a male society, because dance is an extension of the female body.
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According to Nighat: ‘There are many justifications for suppressing women in our colonial system.
‘Earlier Britain suppressed dance here a lot. Also I wrote in my thesis that not the people of India but the people of Great Britain ignored this dance at that time because they did not understand its subtleties. They just wanted a means of temporary entertainment, for which they used dance. The concept of Mujare also came from here.’
Nighat Chaudhry said: ‘They not only suppressed the art of artists but defamed them. They were harassed and oppressed socially and financially, so women artists especially were forced to do other work apart from their art. British soldiers forced them to do many immoral things.’
Apart from his degree in Dance Pedagogy from London, he recently completed his Diploma in Choreography from the Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography affiliated to Jain University, India.
‘There I did a research thesis on Adhi Ghujahi, why a woman is called Adhi Ghujahi in everything but not everywhere. Half of the testimony is only in financial transactions and this is what is written in the Quran. In everything else, the woman’s testimony is complete.’
She said that she is starting a YouTube channel very soon, where there will be dance classes in Urdu.
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2024-09-20 23:15:21