By its fourth annual edition, Abhivyakti, the City Arts Project, has proved that it serves more than the one objective it set out to achieve. Yes, it has provided the much-needed platform to budding artists to demonstrate their talent in…

It is heart-warming for an art lover to see a young dancer and her team – Sanjukta Sinha Dance Company – looking back on the last three productive years with pride and riding the crest of success unfolding an optimistic…

The book by Dr Uma Anantani that was released (2/8) with a welcome informality at the H. K. Auditorium has the title Tridhara  (University Granth Nirman Board, 2022), a collection of the researcher-choreographer’s articles in three segments – Dance, Beauty…

  Samskaras have significance. They get imprinted in the mind of a child. On completion of ten years of training in Bharatanatyam, Anainah, just out of teenage years, presented her first and thematic solo performance Bhakti Yug at the H…

Abhivyakti emboldened Bharatanatyam dancers Kathanki and Manasi to present the emotional world of the vyandhal community through the sharpened skills of their dance medium. Researchers, journalists, fiction writers and theatre persons have focused on the alienation, aspirations and suffering of…

Young talents keep springing surprises at Abhivyakti. With her relatively fluent Kathak dance skills Jigna Dixit, a senior student of Maulik Shah and Ishira Parikh of Anart Foundation gave last Thursday quite a feel of the time of the ancient…

‘We look at ourselves,’ Ishira Parikh and Maulik Shah, once observed in an interview, ‘as a bridge between the past and the future. Their disciple Kadam Parikh’s maiden dance production Illusion at the Abhivyakti festival of arts at KCG on…

Sonal Bhargav Sonal Bhargav’s Lakshmanaa is yet another instance of a pretty good response to the ambience and creative space Abhivyakti provides to budding artists. At KCG on Tuesday evening interest among the educated in the auditorium for its theme…

The narrative at the basis of Kumarasambhavam is a two-dimensional one stressing the need for Shiva to father a warrior who could destroy demon Tarakasura. Mahakavi Kalidas invested the tale with the poetry of such beauty with his creative imagination that…

A trained vocal artist, CY contributor Meera Desai shares her experience as she goes on a musical journey with ‘Confluence’.  The brainchild of tabla player Sapan Anjaria, ‘Confluence’ put together a meeting of kathak, Hindustani classical and Carnatic classical music.…

JG College of Performing Arts and ASIA held World Dance Celebrations at Sivananda Ashram in a special way. Performances by recognized young exponents of all eight Indian Classical Dance forms selected by Bijoy Sivram, Vice-principal of the college, from across…

Art thrives on suggestion and what suggestive power some of the segments of Vaishali Trivedi’s Kathak dance Still Water develops at Abhivyakti Two! Even with reservations for the way the concept unfolds in the 50-minute thematic dance piece rather hazily,…

On Day Two of Kalalayam’s Nrutyotsavam, Dr Haripriya Nambudiri, who combines scholarship with dance skills, in her solo Putana in Kathakali style gave a cherished performance. In immaculate resplendent traditional costume and aharya, she rendered her visual narrative so beautifully…

Ranjumoni Saikia’s opening performance at the two-day Nrutyotsavam (H. K. Auditorium, 24/3), organized by Rucha Bhatt’s Kalalayam proved significance of such a national classical dance festival. 500-year-old Sattriya dance of Assam, introduced as the 8th classical dance just twenty years…

The dance teachers at Kadamb – Sanjukta, Rupanshi, Nandini, Nilima, Manasi – turned its annual day programme (H. K. Auditorium on 17/3) into a well-conceptualized event. They surprised their celebrated guru Kumudini Lakhia, who is showing no signs of growing…

Image Credit : Esplanade.com Kathak dancers Vidha and Abhimanyu Lal have complementary traits. One naturally excels in the feminine lasya aspect of dance, the other in the masculine one. At Saptak when they gave a performance last Saturday, Abhimanyu came…

Pandit Birju Maharaj at Saptak (file photo) Charisma is not definable. It drips and gets felt. Among performing artists, Pt Birju Maharaj has it. That had the audience that chilly night wait right till midnight, as it does every year…

It is heartening to see that a few young classical dancers from time to time take the initiative to explore ways of reaching out with a difference to contemporary viewers even as they explore the roots of our classical arts…

The Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi, though a throbbing national cultural entity, has remained a distant existence for Ahmedabad all these years. With twin objectives its current Chairman Shekhar Sen, a versatile performing artist himself, set to it, it came…

It’s the freshened Ashadh evening ambience of a spacious chowk, a modern version of the traditional one in pols on the other side of the river, becoming a performance space for Kathak that prompts this response.  The inviting architectural design,…

Heavy rhythmic thuds made with strong footwork to robust male singing and music emanated from Kadamb’s practice hall instead of the familiar buzz-like soft tinkle of ghungrus last Wednesday evening. Pankaj Sihag, Rohit Parihar and Mohit Shridhar danced three vigorous…

In his right hand, Krishna held the Sundarshan Chakra. As much a symbol of continuity and auspiciousness, it was a weapon with lethal powers. Krishna did use it against Shishupal. Gandhi moved with his right hand the chakra of his…

A Thumri has thumakna built into this semi-classical 19th century genre evocative of a sensual mood. Thumakna signifies a lilting movement. In Kathak, the dancer is on his/her feet making such limited movement with expressive hand gestures and facial expressions,…

No sooner did I enter Kadamb’s cosy hall upstairs that cold Friday evening, I was relieved of all the tension I had carried of parking the car far away from it on an extremely busy cacophonous Parimal Garden Road. As…

Time stopped, nearly so, when Omkar Dadarkar recited 10.40 onwards for over two hours at Vishwakosh under the aegis of its Lalit Kala Kendra and Agastya Foundation on Sunday. Viraj and Amar Bhatt had held the programme in the morning…

Why do some people worry about the future of classical dance?  If they go to Kadamb or any of its performances, they would find it pulsating with the passion for Kathak and a bunch of young teachers here, well-grounded in…

Though Kathak dance and Carnatic music have been at the Saptak Music Festival for quite a few years now, it is in its 37th year that Bharatanatyam makes its maiden performance on its coveted stage. For its authenticity, who could…

Our classical dancers are articulate. ‘On this stage you have seen,’ Maulik Shah initially said at Saptak on Sunday, ‘two Kathak performances – one with gaharaiyaa-n in it, the other the tarvaraat of an emerging young Kathak dancer.‘ ‘We’ll try,’…

Rupanshi Kashyap’s Kathak being the very first recital on Thursday at Saptak, the Kadamb band of musicians chose particularly to present an Uthan for the audience to get warmed up for it. Rupanshi remained on stage, smiling in tune with…

Pt Birju Maharaj is perceived by dancers and dance lovers all over the country, irrespective of the form or gharana, as a colossus in classical dance.  At the Saptak Music Festival for many years, he has been along with a…

Kumiben, as Kathak Guru Kumudini Lakhia is known to most of us, in her five-minute informal address to the audience at H.K.College Auditorium after Guru Vandana offered to her and other teachers at Kadamb by way of six dainty performances…

‘A hundred cook fires may be lit all at once!’ Bheem wished. Nakul wished their animals ‘will be warm in winter and cool in the summer!’ ‘Where kings can discuss statesmanship,’ was what Yudhishthir wished.  Arjun wished to see ‘a…