Padatik Dance Centre presented Soma Sen at their Buildwell Theatre on July 11. Daughter and disciple of Kanan Sen she has trained under Birju Maharaj, which was fairly evident from her tayyari. Soma has an agreeable stage presence and command over the syntax. Her nritta as well as nritya were adequate and confidence should be her strong point. Her solo recital opened with Omkara followed by Shiva Vandana. Nritta followed with some innovations and Bindadin Maharji’s thumri came next. Debasish Sarkar’s mellifluous singing gave value to this number. Kathak not having a tightly bound solo repertoire, selection of items can, and generally does, follow an eclectic pattern. Thumri was followed by dhamar, then tarana and lastly, an exposition of teentaal along with sawaal jawaab. An entertaining sawaal jawaab, where the prime performer, in this case the dancer, gets an appropriate opportunity to showcase her skills, needs more sensitive handling.The dancer’s dress sense was traditional. The accompanists were Gopal Mishra on the tabla, Jayanta Mukherjee on the sitar and Kanan Sen on the Bol Padhant.A neat presentation.

Sunita Chowdhurie

A graceful return

She had passed from the Government College of Art & Craft in 1954. Being a housewife and a teacher to boot, she had not painted for a long while. But after losing her husband recently, she went back to painting with vigour and chose to create watercolours, tempera and drawings. Gallery Katayun is holding an exhibition of Nilima Dutta’s recent and older work at Gallery Chemould (Celebrating a Fine Artist, till today; and August 6-17 at Gallery Katayun). Dutta does not pretend to be pathbreaker. She is content to follow in the footsteps of Nandalal, Benodebehari and Gopal Ghosh and she does it with finesse. She paints rustic scenes and vignettes from mythologies and employs shades traditionally used in opaque watercolours. But Dutta still wields both pencil and brush with a lot of skill and this is evident from her Saraswati and man lying awake at night. The goddess stands straight yet graceful with her veena. Unlike the colourful Radha, she is almost unadorned and looks dignified and serene as she ought to be. Her early woodcuts are also very accomplished. They remind one of Haren Das but that is hardly any crime. It goes to the credit of this artist that she is back in form after a long hiatus.

S.D.