London Ragas: The Story and the Steps

Doors open at 4:45 PM and the music starts at 5:00 PM. The concert ends at 7:00 PM, with an interval between the two halves.

Seating is unreserved and the room holds 160, so come at doors if you want to sit close.

£20 early bird until 5:00 PM on Sunday 4 October, then £25 general admission for the last week. Student tickets are £15 throughout, with valid ID at the door.

You can book here on this site or through Eventbrite. The price is the same either way, though Eventbrite adds its own booking fee at checkout.

Our monthly baithak in London. One evening a month, a room of about 160, and no distance between the performers and the seats.

The series has run through 2026 with Shakir Khan and Ustad Shahbaz Hussain in July and Pandit Debasis Chakroborty with Ustad Akram Khan in September. This is the October date.

No, and this evening is built for that. Alokparna Guha opens with two short lecture-demonstrations, one on where Kathak comes from and one on tabla, before she dances anything.

By the interval you will know what the footwork is doing and what the hands and face are telling you. The second half is the dance itself.

Your confirmation email carries the ticket. Show it on your phone at the door, or bring a printout if you prefer paper.

If the email has not arrived, check your spam folder first. Still missing, write to [email protected] and we will send it again.

Ticket sales are final once confirmed. If something has come up, write to [email protected] at least 7 days before the event and tell us what happened.

We look at each request on its own merits. A refund is not guaranteed, and we cannot consider requests inside the last week.

You choose between a full refund and a transfer to the new date or an equivalent concert.

Refunds for a cancelled event go back to your original payment method within 7 to 14 business days. You do not need to claim them.

No. We do not permit filming or photography during the performance.

The musicians improvise, and a raised phone or a lit screen pulls the room out of the music. Put the camera away and stay with the sound.

Write to [email protected] before you book and tell us what you need.

Wheelchair spaces and seats near the stage need arranging with the venue in advance, so the earlier you write, the more we can do.

Yes. You do not need to recognise a raga or count a taal to follow what happens on stage.

The music opens at a crawl with no pulse at all, then the tabla enters and the rhythm takes hold. That shape repeats through the evening, and most people read it by the second piece. Sit close and give the opening time.

A baithak is the room this music grew up in. The audience sits close, the musicians play at the same level, and nothing stands between the player and the listener.

We build our concerts that way because the detail of a raga carries best at short range. You hear the string under the slide and the fingertip on the tabla skin, not just the note.

Come at the door time on the event page rather than at the start time. It gives you room to find a seat and settle.

The concert opens with an alap, the slowest and quietest stretch of the evening. Walking in during it costs you the part that sets up everything after.

Yes. The concert runs in two halves with a short interval between them.

The first half holds the classical raga set. The second opens out, and on most of our bills it changes either the players or the form.

Whatever you are comfortable sitting in for a couple of hours.

Our audiences turn up in jeans and in saris on the same night, and neither looks out of place.

No. Seating is unreserved, so pick any free seat when you arrive.

Arriving at doors rather than at the start gets you the closer rows, which is where this music rewards you most.

A pair of hand drums. The smaller wooden one sits under the right hand and carries the pitch. The larger metal one under the left hand supplies the bass and bends it, by pressing the heel of the palm into the head while striking.

The black circle on each head is what makes the sound recognisable. It weights the skin so the drum rings at a definite pitch rather than thudding.

One of the eight classical dance forms of India, from the north. It runs on two things: chakkars, fast spins taken on the heel, and abhinaya, the storytelling carried in the face and hands.

Ankle bells mark the footwork, so the dancer works as a percussionist too, trading rhythmic patterns with the tabla in the same cycle.