Twenty fourth year of Natya Darshan Festival - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Unlike earlier Natya Darshan festivals, this year's celebration, convened by dancer Narthaki Nataraj was built round a theme of the body as a temple, with the motto Connect, Communicate, Elevate, while dealing with a subject. Involving the Pancha Kosha or five layers or sheaths of the human body from Annamaya Kosha, the outermost layer sustained by food, to Pranamaya Kosha, the physical body with life breath, to Manomaya Kosha the vital mental body, to the deeper recesses of mind in Vighyanamaya Kosha, till finally to the total silence and complete harmony of bliss in Anandamaya Kosha, underlines an evolution from gross to subtle body - signifying the route that art also takes with the practitioner - from the physical dancer to the one who communicates from his innermost being. Instead of the comfort of presenting items selected from the common Margam repertoire, here was a need to go through literature in the vernacular languages, to find material suitable to the prescribed theme, and all the participants one saw, had spared no efforts to live up to their allotted theme. 

Read more in the site

Please provide your name / email id along with your comment. Anonymous and derogatory comments will be removed.