The annual festival of Indian Classical Dance introduced by The Dover Lane Music Conference, one of the oldest organisations known for its prestigious music festivals, along with The Dover Lane Music Academy, is an event which dance lovers and connoisseurs of Kolkata look forward to. Introduced in 1997, the three- day festival showcases winners of the annual talent contest beyond familiar circle of names along with established seniors.
This year, the festival at the Satyajit Ray Auditorium, ICCR Kolkata, saw altogether seven soloists, one duet and three institutions. It opened with a compelling Kathak recital by young Trina Roy, the talented grand-daughter of Nrityacharya Ramgopal Mishra. Beginning with Ganesh Vandana, she moved on to present some of the usual pieces of the Jaipur gharana in Teentaal, where she proved her tayari and control on rhythm with her neat footwork. That Sabarna Saha has been well-groomed in Odissi by her teacher Dona Ganguly was evident in her graceful Vishnu Vandana and the meticulously presented Nava Durga.
The Neelamma sisters, Draupadi and Padmini, both medical practitioners from Kerala, offered a neat crisp expansive duet of Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi respectively which they claim as a new dance “idiom”. The jugalbandi, basically nritta is interesting to watch as they perform the same Kriti executing in their respective styles which is undoubtedly well recognised and differentiated by their clear graceful movements while conveying the same meanings. Their elegant ‘hastas’ (hand movements) are their plus points. The evening ended with a Kathak recital by the Pushpak dance academy in which Alokparna Guha remained the most attractive dancer.
The main attraction of the second evening was the Kathak recital by Deepak Maharaj, the gifted son of maestro Birju Maharaj. The gharanedar dancer has naturally a brilliant command over rhythm, obvious from his display of cascading speed and the elements of Kathak. His footwork is not just a physical locomotion with razor sharp precision or its effect of length horizontally but is the finer interpretation of the fractional beats, taal and laya that earns him a special designation.
Even though the final evening began with a lacklustre Kathak presentation by Anwesha Chakravarty, the two subsequent recitals compensated for it. T. Reddy Lakshmi from Delhi, a disciple of Jayarama and Vanashree Rao, proved her mettle with an energetic Durga Stuti in which her stances as Mahisasura Mardini were dramatically powerful. The nuances of her Krishna Bhajan were captured with subtlety and poise.
The best performance of the festival was the closing Odissi recital by Sujata Mohapatra. She began with a magical execution of “Varsha”, a piece based on Kalidas’ “Ritusamhar”, choreographed by Ratikant Mohapatra set to mellifluous music by Pt. Raghunath Panigrahi. Her unparalleled technical virtuosity, sensitively set to pure dance (nritta) to match with evocative, pristine, soul-stirring abhinaya of the different moods of monsoon, the romanticism of rain, the delight in soaking in rain from pitter-patter to heavy shower, resulting in deluge, disaster and destruction were all brilliantly portrayed by the internalised execution and mesmerising movements leaving the audience spellbound. After a magnificent Hamsadhwani Pallavi choreographed first by Guru Kelucharan Mohaptra in 1979 for Kumkum Mohanty and an abhinaya set to an Odia song, she concluded her sparkling recital with the ritualistic Moksha.
