For the more than 120 students of Odissi and Kathak and Guru Parwati Dutta at the Mahagami Gurukul in Aurangabad, for the past 20 years, World Dance Day (April 29) has meant celebrating our heritage by exploring every aspect of dance.
This year, a 10-day long event ‘Nritya Vishwa’ is being organised.
It will start on April 21 with an innovative Kathak production, ‘Ashta Prahar: Exploring the eight time-zones’ through Kathak in dialogue with raga, taal and kavya. To be presented by the Mahagami ensemble, it will trace a day’s course with the help of Kathak repertoire.
Conceptualised and choreographed by Parwati Dutta, the production revolves round a range of compositions, including Devi mantra, Khyal bandish, Marathi kirtan, natavari, tarana and chaturanga.
Abhinaya passages are woven in between pure dance compositions, each indicating a particular prahar. The journey of a day symbolically draws analogy with one’s journey in time; the last prahar indicates the last phase of life, which is depicted through a Tagore poem.
Talk and lec-dem
On April 22, 10 a.m., there will be talks on dance-related subjects: Dr. Jayashree Rajagopalan, Mumbai, on ‘Natyasastra - An underlining cultural link’; lec-dem corelating dance with painting and sculpture with reference to Ajanta and Ellora by Suhani Singh, Mumbai; Dance writing by Sandeep Dutta, Delhi; light design for dance by Parwati Dutta and Opportunities for emerging dancers.
Punaravalokan - Festival of Films on Indian Classical & Contemporary Dance is being organised on April 28 and 29.
The festival will be inaugurated by acclaimed filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan.
The festival, conceptualised by Parwati Dutta and Kunal Ray, is an endeavour to collectively assess our dance heritage and interventions made by various practitioners that have enriched the vocabulary of dance.
utkal kānti, an Odissi performance by Mahagami ensemble will be presented on April 28, featuring traditional repertoire and and new compositions.
