Tuesday 9 June 2015

Book Review - Ashish Mohan Khokar's attendance: The Dance Annual of India 2014-15 - Bhavanvitha Venkat


The feel in the hands of this edition is the same as it is of the expectation as compared with that of attendance 2013-14 ‘Telugu Traditions.’ The pleasant surprise is in the difference of the content and in the emphasis this time around. Yes, the content is of different bandwidth and presentation altogether. Attendance 2014-15 focuses in this edition about numbers, about significant milestones, on some memorable dancers, and wonderful institutions as they approach important anniversaries.  The cover mentions the importance of numbers vis-à-vis the above topics (of 100+ years of Zohra Sehgal or the golden jubilee of SPA Mauritius so on).The  editorial is a simple note, Ashish’s wish and appeal to the readers to encourage more reading of the dance annual and his acknowledgements to the various contributions of individuals. I observed that in the previous version edited by Ananda Shankar Jayant, there was no section on male dancers and I am glad to have found that the male dancer got his due attention by way of a detailed article this time. The “opportunity-taboo and the career-dilemma" angles are covered nicely and Bharatanatyam dancer Praveen Kumar and Kathak dancer Muralimohan Kalva contributed their thoughts on how it is being a male dancer.

Read the review in the site

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