“It was lovely. The tickets to our performances were sold out and the audience gave us standing ovations and asked for encores, which we obliged,” says danseuse Daksha Seth with a broad smile. The artiste is just back from Leicester International Festival, which was held in Leicester, United Kingdom, as part of an official Cultural Olympiad project.
“Leicester International Festival is a global event, which aims at highlighting the different dance forms from around the world. This year's festival was held as part of the 2012 Olympics in London. There were dancers from the Caribbean, South Africa, Spain, and the United Kingdom performing at the fete. Daksha Seth Dance Co. was the only group from India at this festival,” says Daksha.
She and her group of 13 members, which included her husband, Devissaro, daughter, Isha Sharvani, and son, Tao Issaro, reached England on May 23. To Daksha, the festival was like a carnival. It was not just dance at the festival, there were movie screenings, seminars, music…
“Isha's movie Luck by Chance was screened on the first day. After the screening of the movie, she had an interactive session with the audience. May 24 was the ‘set up'. On the second day, we performed our new dance drama ‘Shiva Shakti' in the evening, after a dance rehearsal in the afternoon. We had another performance the following day. A Master Class was on May 27. We answered the queries the audience had on our performance and also gave them brief sketches on Kalaripayathu and Kathak. The audience asked us endless questions about our dance production.”
Martial dance forms
‘Shiva Sakthi' deals with the juxtaposition of Shiva Shakti, the male-female driving force of existence. This dance production, says Daksha, incorporates a lot of martial dance forms from India.
The production effort was all in the family. Isha and Daksha worked on the choreographies while Devissaro and Tao worked on the music.
It was Pawlet Brookes, artistic director of the Leicester International Festival and Samir Bhamra, creative director of the festival who invited them to partake in the event. “Samir had seen our previous works and liked it.”
Although there were groups from various corners of the world performing, Daksha was able to catch only one performance. “It was by a group called Tres from Spain. Their performance was breath taking and out of the box.”
Although there wasn't much time to sightsee, the group who was housed in the centre of the city did manage to walk around the city and catch some sights.
“It is a lovely city and the event was so well organised. I hope to perform there again soon. In fact the organisers have invited us back next year. Let's see,” says Daksha as she signs off.
Where art and sport meet
C ultural Olympiad is the cultural arm of the Olympic Games. In Ancient Greece, art and sport were often performed together. When the modern games were introduced by Pierre de Coubertin in 1896, art and culture played an important role along with sports. Culture is still a vital part of the Games. The 2012 Games, which will be held in the United Kingdom will bring together sport, culture and education in the Cultural Olympiad. The celebrations for the Cultural Olympiad began in 2008. The culmination of the Cultural Olympiad is the London 2012 Festival, of which the Leicester International Festival is a part of.
Source: The Internet
