Classical meets contemporary

Celebrating Dance

As a City, Bangalore loves dance — which was why ‘World Dance Day’, which was held recently at the Alliance Francaise de Bangalore, witnessed such a crowd of enthusiasts who came to take part in the festivities. Organised by the Bangalore School of Music, the event spanned an entire 12 hours, and brought together dancers, gurus, teachers, connoisseurs and those who are simply enthusiastic about the art form.

Several interesting events and programmes came together to make the occasion a memorable one. For starters, the itinerary for the day included performances by more than a 100 artistes, each experts in their own field of dance. All of these artistes came together to pay tribute to the late Mohan Khokar, the legendary scholar of dance.

The occasion also included an exhibition, entitled ‘A Century of Indian Dance: 1901-2000’.
This included items from the ‘Mohan Khokar Dance Collection’, which covers all fields of dance, such as classical, ritual and folk as well as contemporary style. Dance enthusiasts could spend hours at the exhibition, given its vast content — it included books, photographs, paper-cuttings, posters, brochures, handbills, banners, drawings, paintings, etchings, costumes, masks, gramophone records, videotapes and other such items.
The performances began with a bharatanatyam recital by Padmini Ravi, followed by a recital Payal Ramchandani, who astonished the audience with her graceful kuchipudi display. There were many other bharatanatyam performances put up by dancers such as the Hoskere sisters, Suparna Sai Venkatesh, Kavya Shanmugam, Parshwanath Upadhye and Archana and Chethana, who are shishyas of Guru Bhanumathi.

Other dances such as kuchipudi — performed by Payal Ramchandani, Deepa Sashidharan, Rekha Satish, Avijit Das and Vyjayanthi Kashi — and kathak, which was brought to the stage by Hari and Chethana were also appreciated by the audience.

The ‘Arch Ensemble’ treated dance enthusiasts to a modern performance, and Kaustavi Sarkar as well as Madhulita Mohapatra showcased odissi.

Vasundhara Doraswamy’s display of yogic bharatanatyam and Angabala’s Manipuri dance were especially interesting.

Madhulita Mohapatra said that being a part of such a large-scale event was indeed an enriching experience.

“It was wonderful — this was the largest gathering of dance legends and gurus that I’ve seen so far. The entire occasion has been successful, and it felt great to perform in front of so many gurus. We feel like we’ve truly celebrated World Dance Day,” she said.