LalitArpan at 25: When tradition learns to move

As Shovana Narayan’s festival celebrates its Silver Jubilee on October 8 and 9 with ‘Tradition, Transition & Transmission’, its 25-year journey offers a larger reflection on how classical arts survive, evolve and reach the next generation.

A cultural tradition does not remain alive merely because it is preserved. It remains alive because someone continues to practise it, question it, reinterpret it and, eventually, pass it on.

That idea lies at the heart of LalitArpan, the annual festival founded in 2002 by Kathak exponent Shovana Narayan, Dr Jyotsna Suri and the late tabla maestro Ustad Shafaat Ahmed Khan. Twenty-five years after its beginnings, the festival celebrates its Silver Jubilee on October 8 and 9, 2026, at the Stein Auditorium, India Habitat Centre, New Delhi. The theme this year—‘Tradition, Transition & Transmission’—could hardly be more appropriate.

For Narayan, however, the 25-year journey is not simply a story of longevity. It is a story of gratitude, artistic responsibility and faith in the ability of classical arts to remain meaningful in changing times.

The festival was born from a conversation.

In 2002, Narayan and Ustad Shafaat Ahmed Khan were reminiscing about their own early years as performing artists. They remembered how senior and established artists of their generation would invite young performers onto their stages, giving them something that could be more valuable than an opportunity itself: confidence.

Those young artists were being told, in effect, that they belonged to the tradition and had a place within its future.

Narayan and Khan felt that this culture of encouragement needed to continue.

“It was also a way of expressing our gratitude to those senior artists who had given us opportunities,” Narayan recalls. “At the same time, we wanted to keep alive the tradition of giving young artists a platform.”

Dr Jyotsna Suri subsequently joined the initiative, and the idea gradually took shape as LalitArpan.

It is significant that the festival was conceived not merely as a showcase of established names, but as an intergenerational space. From the beginning, the underlying thought was that a tradition survives through transmission—and transmission requires someone willing to open the door.

From Arpan to LalitArpan

The festival was initially called Arpan. There was a deeply personal story behind the name and its eventual transformation into LalitArpan. Narayan’s mother, Lalita Narayan, was closely associated with the initiative. At the same time, Jyotsna Suri’s husband, Lalit Suri, extended substantial support and encouragement to the endeavour.

Narayan remembers the relationship through the imagery of cultivation. Lalita Narayan, she says, had sown the seed, while Lalit Suri helped nurture it through his encouragement and support.

After Lalit Suri’s death, the festival was renamed LalitArpan, bringing together the memory of Lalita Narayan and Lalit Suri.

The name consequently carries more than personal remembrance. It embodies the emotional history of an institution that grew through friendship, affection, gratitude and shared faith in the performing arts.

A tradition that refused to become static

The LalitArpan of 2002 was not the LalitArpan of today. The festival began on a relatively modest scale and gradually expanded its artistic canvas. One of the significant additions was Western classical music. Initially, it had not been part of the festival’s conception. But Narayan began to see a commonality: Western classical music too is rooted in a rigorous tradition, discipline and years of practice.

So Western classical vocals and piano found a place within the festival.

The expansion also moved in another direction—towards traditions and instruments that were in danger of disappearing from public attention. At one point, an entire programme was devoted to pakhawaj players. Other presentations explored endangered or lesser-seen instruments, including through dance-theatre.

This is where Narayan’s understanding of tradition becomes particularly significant. For her, tradition is not a fixed inheritance that must be protected from change. It is a living organism. “Tradition is not static,” she says. “It is constantly going through transition. But in that process, its essence should not be lost.”

The distinction is crucial.

A tradition that never changes risks becoming disconnected from the world around it. A tradition that changes without understanding its own foundations risks losing its identity. LalitArpan has attempted to inhabit the space between those two extremes. And that is precisely what this year’s three-word theme seeks to articulate: Tradition. Transition. Transmission.

The myth of the ‘uncommitted’ young

The world of classical dance has changed considerably over the last quarter-century. Yet Narayan is reluctant to accept the familiar complaint that today’s young practitioners lack the dedication of earlier generations.

In fact, she remembers hearing exactly the same criticism when she was young. The older generation, she says, would tell them that the youngsters of their time were not what young people had been in the past. Every generation, it seems, repeats the complaint. Narayan sees something different.

There will always be a relatively small percentage of young people who commit themselves deeply to an art form. Their lifestyles may be modern. Their worlds may be shaped by technology and very different social circumstances. But once they enter the learning space, practise and perform, the essential qualities remain recognisable.

The reverence for the art. The discipline. The devotion. The willingness to practise. “Their lifestyle may be very modern,” she says, “but when they come to learn, when they practise, when they perform, their shraddha, bhakti, dedication and commitment are still there.” And then, with characteristic warmth, she adds of today’s young artists: “They are amazing. Hats off to them.”

That faith in the younger generation is important to understanding LalitArpan. The festival is not simply preserving a tradition for young people. It is trusting them to become its future custodians.

When audiences had three hours

If the discipline of the serious young practitioner has remained remarkably resilient, the relationship between audiences and performance has changed.

Narayan remembers a time when young dancers could perform solo for two-and-a-half or three hours. Audiences had the time, patience and cultural habit to remain with a single artist for that length of time. The duration gradually contracted—to two hours, then one-and-a-half, then one hour. Today, she says, a solo artist is often expected to finish in about 40 minutes; 45 minutes is considered generous, and an hour can feel like a long performance.

There are practical reasons. People have less time. Travel patterns have changed.

Concerns around security and safety have altered the way audiences move through the city. And social media has undoubtedly affected attention spans. But Narayan does not believe the serious audience has disappeared.

The rasika is still there.

The committed viewer still comes, listens and watches carefully. The difference is that the encounter must now happen within a more limited window.

The stage has changed as well.

Earlier, presentation was simpler. The artist was expected to create an entire atmosphere through expression, movement and imagination. Narayan recalls an instruction from the older generation of gurus: if you are dancing in the blazing afternoon, you should be able to make the audience experience the coolness of night; if you are dancing at night, you should be able to make them feel the heat and thirst of a summer afternoon.

Today, sophisticated lighting, stage design and technical effects can help create those environments. But they cannot replace the artist.

The technical apparatus may enhance presentation; the artistic experience still has to come from the performer.

For Narayan, therefore, the fundamental training has not changed. The guru-shishya relationship remains intact. What has changed is the environment in which the artist presents the work.

The night when the gates had to close

Among 25 years of performances, Narayan finds it difficult to nominate one as the festival’s definitive memory. Every year, she says, has its own beauty. Every artist brings something distinctive. Every performance becomes part of the festival’s collective memory. Yet one year returns particularly vividly: 2016. That year, LalitArpan developed a presentation around the poetry of Vidyapati. Eight dancers representing eight different classical dance styles were brought together, with each portraying one of the Ashta Nayikas, the eight archetypal heroines of classical Indian aesthetics.

The response was overwhelming.

So many people arrived that the auditorium could not accommodate everyone. People remained outside, and eventually the gates had to be closed.

The image has stayed with Narayan. But she still resists turning one successful evening into the festival’s defining moment. For her, the real story is the accumulation of experiences: year after year, artist after artist, audience after audience.

That is how cultural institutions acquire memory. Why classical dance must speak to its time.
Perhaps the most important question facing any classical art today is whether it can speak meaningfully to contemporary life without compromising its grammar. Narayan’s answer is unequivocal: classical dance has never actually been separate from the concerns of its time.

The stories that have become part of the classical repertoire may appear timeless today, but when they were created and performed, they would have spoken to the anxieties, values and questions of their own societies.

She points to the story of Kaliya Daman.
The traditional narrative is familiar: Krishna subdues the serpent Kaliya. But Narayan suggests that the story can also be read symbolically through the contemporary concerns of environmental degradation and water pollution. Krishna does not simply destroy Kaliya; he subdues him and sends him away. One may read in that narrative an acknowledgement that life within water has its own place and that human existence cannot be separated from ecological balance.

For Narayan, such interpretations do not dilute tradition. They demonstrate its continuing relevance.
The larger philosophical basis, she believes, can be found in the Natyashastra itself and its account of the emergence of the Natya Veda.

Performance, in this understanding, is not merely entertainment. It can communicate values, engage with human behaviour and make society reflect upon itself.

The performing arts possess a particular power because they do not speak only to the intellect. They touch the heart. “And when something touches the heart,” Narayan says, “it stays there.”

That may be one of the strongest arguments for the continuing relevance of classical dance. The difference between an acharya and a guru.

The Silver Jubilee’s decision to honour 25 senior dance gurus of Delhi adds another dimension to the theme of Transmission. The opening evening of the festival will pay tribute to these veterans for their contribution to Indian classical dance.

For Narayan, the word ‘guru’ carries a meaning far beyond technical instruction.

Someone can teach skill. Someone can teach technique. Someone can train a student in the mechanics of an art form. But a guru, in her understanding, does something more profound. A guru transmits the soul of the art, its philosophy and a way of looking at life.

That distinction explains why the guru-shishya relationship remains so central to her thinking about classical dance. The true inheritance is not merely a repertoire of movements or compositions. It includes discipline, aesthetic sensitivity, values, humility, imagination and a way of inhabiting the art. Transmission, therefore, is not photocopying the past. It is carrying its essence forward.

The invisible labour behind 25 years

The romance of a 25-year cultural journey can easily obscure its practical realities. Festivals require money. Costs rise. Inflation adds pressure. Artists, venues, production, publicity and logistics all demand resources. Narayan is candid about the difficulty of keeping a festival going year after year.

There is constant effort involved in seeking financial support. It is not glamorous work, but it is indispensable. Jyotsna Suri, she emphasises, has remained a continuing source of support. That continuity matters. For every cultural institution that survives for decades, there is a great deal of work that audiences never see—the negotiations, fundraising, coordination, planning and persistence that make it possible for artists eventually to walk onto a stage.

LalitArpan’s longevity is therefore also a story of invisible labour. Twenty-five years, three movements. The most revealing way to look at LalitArpan at 25 may be through the three words chosen for its Silver Jubilee.

Tradition is the inheritance—the artistic legacy received from earlier generations and the culture of senior artists opening doors for those who followed.

Transition is the willingness to evolve—to include new artistic forms, revisit endangered traditions and allow classical dance to engage with contemporary questions and changing modes of presentation.

Transmission is the ultimate responsibility: to ensure that the knowledge, discipline and spirit of the art do not end with one generation.The three are not separate stages. They form a continuum.
A tradition must be received before it can be transformed. It must be transformed if it is to remain meaningful. And it must eventually be transmitted if it is to have a future.
This is what gives LalitArpan’s Silver Jubilee a significance beyond the celebration of an anniversary. It is a moment to ask what it means to keep a classical tradition alive in a rapidly changing world.
Narayan’s answer is neither to freeze tradition nor to reinvent it beyond recognition. It is to preserve its essence while allowing its expression to evolve. That is perhaps the delicate balance that LalitArpan has sought for a quarter of a century.

From a conversation between two senior artists remembering the encouragement they once received, to a festival that has given a platform to generations of performers; from Arpan to LalitArpan; from Indian classical forms to a wider engagement with other traditions; from the simple stage to technologically sophisticated presentation; from three-hour solos to shorter performances shaped by contemporary attention spans—the journey has been one of continuity through change.

And now, at 25, the festival turns its gaze towards the future.

The most enduring cultural traditions are not those that refuse to move. They are those that know what must never be lost while learning what must change.

That is the quiet wisdom contained in Tradition, Transition & Transmission. And perhaps that is LalitArpan’s most meaningful offering at 25: not merely the preservation of a legacy, but the confidence to place that legacy in the hands of the next generation-and allow it to live again.

(The author is a retired State Tax Officer, Uttar Pradesh State Tax Department)