After a tragic murder took her mentor, dancer Bageshree Vaze is channelling her spirit onstage

Bageshree Vaze hadn't intended to become a dancer.

She had trained in Bharatanatyam, a classical Indian dance style from South India as a young girl growing up in St. John's Newfoundland — but she moved to Toronto in 1996 looking for a job in journalism. Then she saw Jahanara Akhlaq dance.

It was at Desh Pardesh, a multidisciplinary South Asian arts festival that ran from 1988 to 2001 in Toronto and focused its programming on addressing issues such as feminism, class, sexuality, race and imperialism. Vaze explains: "First of all, even to experience a festival like Desh Pardesh was something new — this festival of South Asian culture but from the next generation's perspective. It was so unlike any other type of Indian festival or programming I'd seen." Aware of Akhlaq's reputation as a Kathak dancer to watch out for, especially given her experimentation with the form, Vaze was fascinated by the performance.

"To call it Kathak would be a bit of an injustice," she says. "The way she moved, her presence on stage...It's like when you watch a legendary movie, something you've heard a lot about, and the actor on screen was born to do that role. She was so perfect and precise in her movements. It was like watching dance for the first time."

A gifted dancer, Akhlaq's star was on the rise in the Canadian dance scene at the time. In 1998, she had received a Chalmer's grant from the Canada Council of Arts to study with renowned Indian contemporary dancer-choreographer Chandralekha. But that promise of talent was cut short. On January 18, 1999, Akhlaq and her father Zahoor ul Akhlaq ​— a celebrated Pakistani painter, sculptor and architect — were shot dead at their family home in Lahore, Pakistan. The motive for their murder remains unclear.

On December 1, Vaze will pay tribute to Akhlaq through a dance-theatre performance titled "The World of Jahanara" at Toronto's Aga Khan Museum. Weaving together Kathak dance, music, text and visuals, the performance re-imagines the hours before Akhlaq's death.

Over the years, Vaze has had many opportunities to reflect on the ways her life intersected with Akhlaq's. After seeing her that first time at Desh Pardesh, Vaze and Akhlaq were part of a group dance performance in 1997, commemorating 50 years of India's (and Pakistan's) independence from British imperial rule. They became good friends, practising and hanging out together.

In 1997, Vaze was at something of a crossroads herself. Like Akhlaq, she'd also won a Chalmer's grant to continue her dance training in India. Although she had started learning another Indian classical dance form called Kuchipudi, she felt herself drawn toward Kathak, especially after watching veteran Kathak master Birju Maharaj perform live in New York City. Her conversations with Akhlaq turned her curiosity into conviction.

"Her movement felt like an aesthetic I wanted to get into," says Vaze, who had also interviewed Akhlaq for an article she wrote on Kathak in Toronto for the now-defunct Kala Arts magazine. Akhlaq spoke to Vaze about her own journey with dance. Even though she was a Kathak dancer, "she had other ideas of movement," Vaze explains. "She would say, 'Sometimes I want to put my leg up in the air. I feel compelled to do other things with my body.' She was not limited to other people's perception of Kathak."

Akhlaq's complete commitment to dance also impressed Vaze. "At that time, there weren't many people who were dancing full-time, professionally. Jahanara was the first person I knew who just wanted to be a dancer. Until that time I didn't think you could do that. I had gone into journalism; I was thinking about law school. She was always confident and clear in her idea. She didn't even have a university degree. She knew this is what she wanted to do. She did not want to have an academy in the suburbs — she wanted to be a solo artist."

Besides encouraging Vaze to pursue her interest in Kathak, Akhlaq also taught her some Kathak movements during their practice sessions together. Vaze went on to study Kathak in New Delhi, while Akhlaq went to Pakistan to reconnect with her own gurus, famous dancer Naheed Siddiqui and Kathak Maharaj. Vaze and Akhlaq kept in touch, but missed seeing each other during their respective trips back to Toronto.

When Vaze first heard about Akhlaq's death in Lahore, she couldn't believe the news at first. Details were slow to come by in those days before instant internet access. Even when she read more reports outlining the sequence of events that led to the murder, the motive remained unclear.

"Ultimately the details did not matter," says Vaze. "The fact was that she was gone...It felt like she went away on a trip, and just had not come back."

To pay tribute to her one-time friend, Vaze has recreated some of Akhlaq's most memorable pieces — dancing some of them just as Akhlaq did, and reinterpreting some of Akhlaq's choreography in others. Akhlaq's mother Sheherezade Alam, a famous Pakistani ceramist, shared videos and images of Akhlaq's work with Vaze. The entire process transported Vaze back to 1997.

"Her spirit, the way she saw Kathak — it came back to me. You know, sometimes you get jaded with life. You push yourself to the highest standards, work harder and you start believing you have achieved something. It's the worst kind of comfort zone.

"[Watching her videos], now I remember why I wanted to learn to Kathak."

The World of Jahanara. Choreographed and performed by Bageshree Vaze. December 1, Aga Khan Museum, Toronto. www.agakhanmuseum.com