When dream sequences took the stage

DANCE diScourse

As part of this, an award ceremony and a dance festival were held at Alliance Francaise. Twelve male dancers from the age of 20 to 40 performed solo recitals and mesmerised the audiences with their wonderful performances. Two out the 12 dancers were awarded the Prof Mohan Khokar Award for excellence in the field of dance and The Ram Gopal Award for the best male dancer respectively.

The festival began with the youngest performer — Anil Iyer, a 20-year-old dancer — giving a Bharatanatyam performance on Lord Shiva. This was followed by a stunning Kathak performance by Sweekruth. The highlight of the evening, however, was the Sandhya Tandav, a Kuchipudi performance by Gururaj.

Most performances at the festival were based on Shiva, with a few exceptions. One such exception was the performance of P Praveen Kumar, who played the part of Yashoda and Bala Krishna in his Bharatanatyam piece, with such grace and realism that the audiences were left spellbound. The other highlight of the evening was the Odissi performance by Uday Shetty. He welcomed the month of spring in Vasant Pallavi that instantaneously made one feel joyous.

There was also a contemporary performance by Janardhan Urs, titled Nadanta which was based on lord Shiva. Vikram Srinivas, a film-maker who was at the event said, “My favourite was the Odissi performance. I am a little partial towards pure dance forms, as I believe they address themes in a more simple manner. The contemporary dance performed here was too vague for me to grasp.”

The festival ended with Maya Rao, a dance doyenne, taking the stage to announce the winners of the two prestigious awards and speak a few words about the legendary dancer Ram Gopal. “We dancers weave fairytales and Ram Gopal was no less. His father disliked the fact that he danced. Once as he was performing at a palace, he spotted his father. Frightened, he did a quick namaskaram and ran out. It is believed that he used to joke and say that when people saw him. They thought it wasn’t him but Lord Shiva who was running,” she said.

After this highly amusing story , the award ceremony commenced. Satyanarayan Raju won the Ram Gopal Award and P Praveen Kumar won the Prof Mohan Khokar Award.