Echo of Kumudini Lakhia & Remembering Zohra Segal - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

Kumudini Lakhia, one of the most sensitive of Kathak luminaries whose creative output helped shape modern Kathak, is sadly no longer with us. But in the students trained by her with so much love and diligence at her institution Kadamb, one glimpses facets of her prodigious sense of aesthetics, which imparted to each aspect of the dance form, a quality of added lyricism. Titled The Dance of Celestial Ecstasy, the Kathak program at the Kamani, designed by Kumudini's long-time student Sanjukta Sinha and presented along with students groomed in her dance company, succeeded in evoking in the capacity gathering in the auditorium, a nostalgic feel of the special poetry of movement which was the hallmark of Kumudini Lakhia.....

The annual Zohra Segal Festival of the Arts, conducted by Pallavi Arts run by Zohra's daughter Kiran Segal, celebrated this year in conjunction with Ahad Anhad at the Academy of Fine Arts and Literature in Siri Fort Institutional Area, very successfully captured the feel of Zohra in all her liveliness and laughter. The program spread over three days, for this critic, underlined Zohra's most cherished quality - of being able to laugh at herself. With all her talents, in a life which had its full share of ups and downs, it was the sheer fun of life coupled with an enviable sense of humour, which never left her, and enabled her not only to triumph over life's less joyous moments, but to bring joy to people she had interactions with.

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