The easy part of starting a professional Indian dance troupe in Russia was the inspiration.
"I was 10 when I saw 'Geet Gaaya Pattharon Ne,' " said Vera Evgrafova, referring to the 1964 music-filled drama about love between a sculptor and a dancer known in English as "The Rocks Sang a Melody."
"It was such a beautiful impression," she said through an interpreter after breakfast at the Westmark Hotel on Tuesday. She said she felt as if she must have been a dancer who had performed to such music in a former life.
"There was nothing else I could do about it," she said. "I had to dance."
Evgrafova, from Petrozavodsk in Karelia, the northwest part of Russia, studied anthropology in Moscow at what is now known as the Russian State University for the Humanities. There she met an Indian dancer named Das Gupta, who taught her the basics of classical dance styles.
She immersed herself in the art form and returned home hoping to teach and perform the dance there. But she ran into a chilly reception from the Russian arts bureaucracy.
The system by which arts are managed in Russia involves "houses of culture." There are several such in every region and artists are largely required to be connected to one of them in order to have a place to teach, rehearse and perform.
In the 1980s, when Evgrafova first approached them, the authorities brusquely rejected the idea of taking a foreign art form under their wing. "It will not be interesting," said one official. "Indian dances we do not need in Karelia," said another.
"They wanted traditional Karelian dances," Evgrafova said.
After a long search she finally convinced one house to accept her Indian ensemble, Mayuri, Hindi for "female peacock."
It turned out that other Karelians were as excited by the grace and precision of the dance as she had been. Students came knocking at her door. Today Mayuri has 60 professional dancers and runs classes for more than 400 children. "Indian dance is now very popular in Karelia," Evgrafova said.
Eventually, even the bureaucracy was impressed. In 1998 they awarded her the prestigious title of "Honored Worker of Culture of Karelia."
Evgrafova said that while Indian dance is her obsession, she is also interested in Spanish dancing. "The gypsies who came to Spain were originally from India," she said. "It's where flamenco came from."
Mayuri also holds yoga classes in Petrozavodsk. "Yoga came out of the dance," she said. "They're all connected."
Evgrafova and several of her dancers are in Anchorage as the main performing group at Asian Culture Night on Friday, April 15. Each year the Asian Alaskan Cultural Center presents cultural entertainment from different communities from Asia, gala performances that include the awarding of $500 scholarships to several Anchorage-area students.
It took 44 hours for the Mayuri troupe to make the trip from Petrozavodsk to Alaska said Sanjay Talwar, an Anchorage businessman who will be the emcee for Asian Night on Friday.
"They started with a 16-hour bus ride to Moscow," he said. A couple of long plane trips got them to Minneapolis where U.S. Customs had questions. "I was on the phone with customs for three hours," Talwar said. "But we finally got everything good with them."
It cost a lot to bring so many people so far, Talwar said, but the local Indian community, hosting the Asian Night event this year, decided that Mayuri was the one they wanted. "We were looking at four different groups," he said. "But these dancers were really sincere, very professional."
"Very talented," added Neil Bhargava, who helped raise funds for the trip.
Major sponsorship was provided by Neeser Construction with several other private companies chipping in. Grants were also received from the Rasmuson and Atwood foundations along with other public entities.
As a unique incentive to support the event, contributors were invited to sponsor specific pieces on the program, which range from solo dances to pieces that include the full ensemble.
In addition to the public performance on Friday, Mayuri will present a program for Anchorage schoolchildren in Atwood Concert Hall on Thursday morning.
ASIAN CULTURE NIGHT will take place at 7 p.m. Friday, April 15, in Atwood Concert Hall. Tickets are available at centertix.net.