It was a moment to relish for Sharmishta Mukherjee. For the daughter of finance minister Pranab Mukherjee, better known as an accomplished Kathak exponent, performing in front of Bharatanatyam exponent Padma Subramaniam could have been a dream come true. “My mother had once watched Padmaji perform and she then decided her daughter has to be a dancer.
She would be happy to know Padmaji liked my performance,” Sharmishta told DC after her first Kathak performance in the city on Monday. “My mother chose dance for me, I chose Kathak because I was so fascinated by the art form.”
After a scintillating six pieces by Sharmishta and her troupe, Padma Subramaniam was all praise for her. “You have very strong technique,” she told Sharmishta, asking her to perform more in the city.
One of the pieces was a fusion with western classical, with the dancers swaying their lithe feet to the music of Italian composer Antanio Vivaldi’s ‘Four Seasons’.
“I don’t experiment for the sake of experimenting. I have to feel strongly about it. But I believe the classical art form gives enough scope to innovate. You never know how any art form was 5,000 years ago,” says Sharmishta whose performance on Rabindranath Tagore in Kolkata recently was a huge hit.
On her March 17 performance in Chennai, she would perform for the poems of Tagore and Shelley. “It is a huge challenge to innovate. But I think the challenge lies more in the technicality of it — like composing music, etc.”
“What I liked best about her performance was she let other performers shine through. The generosity is typical of a true artiste,” actor Kamal Haasan said.
