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Saturday, 4 January 2025
Obit/Tribute - Kathak Guru Chitra Venugopal (1936 - 2025)
Chennai swamped by Margazhi music/dance deluge - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman
Come Margazhi Season and with the deluge of music /dance and lectures on art in Chennai, one jumps grasshopper like from one Sabha to another, trying to absorb as much as one's energy and trafficking through bumpy and in places water-logged roads and alleys, will allow. In the desire not to miss out on opportunities, one often misses out on the luxury of sitting through entire events, ending up seeing parts of festivals playing out at various centres.
LECTURE BY BRITISH HISTORIAN WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
NRITHYA CHOODAMANI AND SANGEETHA CHOODAMANI
NAVIA'S VIRODHABHASA INTENSITY STRUGGLES AGAINST AUDIENCE RIGIDITY
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Wednesday, 1 January 2025
Anita says...January 2025
Happy New Year, everyone!
Here we are at the start of yet another year.
A year that brings with it all the hopes and promises of something better and brighter than the year that has just gone by.
Are you looking back at 2024 with gratitude, joy, delight? A twinge of regret and sadness? Are you a better person today than a year ago? It is a brand new start and moving beyond resolutions, there are 12 brand new months to reset, pivot or simply get up, dust the knicks and scratches off our knees and keep going-dancing!
For me, 2024 has been one of big ups and downs. A broken bone mid year and weeks of rest put me in a reflective mood about my own journey. It's been 60 years since my arangetram! How much and how far I have travelled in my life and art! How many new initiatives, new platforms, new brands. So perhaps 2024 has rightly been a year of pause, reflection and perhaps a pivot!
My travels took me to many countries but in December alone I went to villages, towns, cities, mountains and the seaside. I watched a gamut of performances - ritual theatre, folk art, mythic plays, classical and neo classical dance, performance art, film music orchestras, contemporary dance and, skipping (almost) the entire Chennai Margazhi season. I felt a huge surge of gratitude for the opportunity to encounter new cultural experiences while staying curious with a multitude of questions about walking the creative path.
To take the entire month of December off was always the plan. Knowing only too well that Chennai would be drowning in too many Bharatanatyam shows from morning to night, I intentionally planned to turn my lens onto other kinds of creative endeavours. I wanted to absorb a greater diversity in arts programming, to personally witness the push of bristling young minds curating inter-disciplinary events with courage and bravado - to acknowledge (with a wistful twinge) the shrinking space for classical dance and to envy classically trained musicians who are able to easily straddle so many worlds simultaneously.
Here we are at the start of yet another year.
A year that brings with it all the hopes and promises of something better and brighter than the year that has just gone by.
Are you looking back at 2024 with gratitude, joy, delight? A twinge of regret and sadness? Are you a better person today than a year ago? It is a brand new start and moving beyond resolutions, there are 12 brand new months to reset, pivot or simply get up, dust the knicks and scratches off our knees and keep going-dancing!
For me, 2024 has been one of big ups and downs. A broken bone mid year and weeks of rest put me in a reflective mood about my own journey. It's been 60 years since my arangetram! How much and how far I have travelled in my life and art! How many new initiatives, new platforms, new brands. So perhaps 2024 has rightly been a year of pause, reflection and perhaps a pivot!
My travels took me to many countries but in December alone I went to villages, towns, cities, mountains and the seaside. I watched a gamut of performances - ritual theatre, folk art, mythic plays, classical and neo classical dance, performance art, film music orchestras, contemporary dance and, skipping (almost) the entire Chennai Margazhi season. I felt a huge surge of gratitude for the opportunity to encounter new cultural experiences while staying curious with a multitude of questions about walking the creative path.
To take the entire month of December off was always the plan. Knowing only too well that Chennai would be drowning in too many Bharatanatyam shows from morning to night, I intentionally planned to turn my lens onto other kinds of creative endeavours. I wanted to absorb a greater diversity in arts programming, to personally witness the push of bristling young minds curating inter-disciplinary events with courage and bravado - to acknowledge (with a wistful twinge) the shrinking space for classical dance and to envy classically trained musicians who are able to easily straddle so many worlds simultaneously.
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