Living in Delhi, one comes across a very large number of highly esteemed Indian artists, including those from the performing arts of dance, having made the capital their centre of activities, for residence as well as performance. This seems to happen primarily for two reasons. First, the capital remains an assumed source of patronage from various quarters. And second, one gets to witness -- and thereby get intellectually stimulated -- by the visiting foreign artists, who always touch the capital in order to count "having done" a country, much like any other foreign tourist. Living in a far away eastern metropolis however, one perceives that Kolkata is disadvantaged precisely on the same two scores.
At the beginning of a well-organised, three-day Festival of Indian Classical Dance, presented on September 7-9 by Dover Lane Music Conference and Dover Lane Music Academy at the ICCR Kolkata, when the latter's regional director made an observation on the relative absence of artist quality as well as audience enthusiasm in the classical dance scene, it was immediately pointed out by the secretary of the venerable Dover Lane authorities -- who have been organising these festivals every year very much on quality criteria alone -- that out of nine eminent performers this year, as many as five are from this very city. It became an interesting exercise for this critic to examine both these points and counter-points.
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