With bright costumes and vivacious expressions, the beautiful brides and their bubbly friends stole the hearts of the audience at the Oppana competition (HS category ) at ‘Rajamally,’ the venue at Holy Family High School here, on Saturday.
Adorned with traditional jewels, the young brides were the cynosure of all eyes. Their palms and feet were decorated with beautiful mehndi patterns. As the cherubic bride sat with a shy smile, the dancers took steps around her, sometimes teasing and sometimes appreciating her beauty.
Once a traditional folk dance of women during Muslim weddings, Oppana has evolved as one of the most popular events of the art festival. Most of the performances were of good quality, complying with traditional style and guidelines of Oppana. While the brides were clad in bright glittering dresses, dancers wore white Kachi , the traditional costume of Muslim women.
However, Oppana fans as well as the participants were not very happy about the venue this time. “Popular dance forms such as Oppana should have been arranged in a more prominent venue. The participants from other districts had a tough time finding the venue as it was far from the main stage,” complained participants from Ernakulam district.
“The stage was slippery,” said one of the performers. They also alleged that there were no sufficient facilities for the participants to get ready and take rest.
Teams were not very happy about the size of the audience too. “We haven’t witnessed such a poor crowd for the Oppana performance in the recent past. Oppana competition used to fetch a crowd of 15,000-20,000 each time,” recalled an Oppana trainer from Kozhikode.
