The Sangeet Natak Akademi is organising a series of dance performances that will showcase the correlation between yoga and Bharatnatyam. The event will be part of Yog Parv, a festival that will be celebrating the International Yoga Day through performing and visual arts, workshops and interactive sessions. The performances will showcase the interdependence and the philosophical interconnections between these traditional art forms.
Renowned artists will be performing and talking about their respective arts in the context of yoga. Veteran dancer Sonal Mansingh says the meaning of yoga as enunciated by Yoga-Rishi Patanjali has to be redefined in every age and time. Her endeavour, she says, is to reiterate the well-established concept of yoga as the guiding principle of one’s day-to-day life.
The dance performances will demonstrate how every Indian dancer, pursuing classical dance, unconsciously practises yoga during the course of performance as well as in all its preparatory actions.
The performances will show how Surya Namaskar corresponds to Alarippu, where the dancer’s body unfolds as a blooming lotus. In Indian mythology, the lotus is considered to be the sun’s flower, which opens its petals at sunrise.
In Surya Namaskar, the dancer praises the Lord for the destruction of two demons, who had plunged the world in darkness. The dancer will be adopting various asanas like trikonasana, parswakonasana, vrakshasana, ustrasana, kapotasana, parivratta trikonasana, veerabhadrasana, parigasana, padmasana and illustrate similar gestures and postures in Bharatnatyam.
The events will be on at Rabindra Bhawan, Meghdoot Theatre, between June 21 and June 27.
