Tuesday 16 January 2018

NEW (in the) YEAR - TRENDING by Ashish Mohan Khokar


Trending all through the year - end and New Year beginning were New Year’s greeting cards of and from dancers with their own photos, of course! No promotion like self promotion. Our young, internet savvy dancers are very good with technology.  Since, no one else is likely to do so (promote them) in this age of FB and blogs, why not help yourself? After all, a bard said long ago: God helps those who help themselves! 

Helping themselves or how to help dance reach out, especially in an over- saturated form like BN (Bharatanatyam), was the focus of Music Academy's opening day seminar on 5th January, and easily the most important academic discussion in the New Year. On small stage in its mini hall, nicely refurbished, filled huge talents like the one and only Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam, diva Alarmel Valli, activist-artiste Anita Ratnam and a rather reticent, yours truly. I was more shy than switched off, as I was being put on the same stage as two of BN current greats - Padukka and Vallima (as I fondly call them) - and I was also reluctant to add my two bit because I dreaded another drivel-filled  seminar on a Friday morning of mealy-mouthed pontifying but thanks to all of us and an excellent theatre talent called PCR (for Delhiites that only means Police Control Room) a husky-voiced, polished gentleman, who moderated such diverse talents very well, so the proceedings were fulsome and informative (as many shared later, privately).  

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