Drishti Art Centre was established in 2001 by Bharatanatyam exponent Anuradha Vikranth at Sahakar Nagar, Bengaluru to offer holistic training in Bharatanatyam. She has nearly 400 students taking training in the classical dance form. As a centre imparting training in dance, it has received the National Excellence Award 2019 by the National Press Council of India Newspapers Association of Karnataka. The Drishti Art Centre also offers training in yoga and music. They arrange a biennale event titled Nrityarpana.The Drishti National Dance Festival is an annual event which Bengaluru rasikas look forward to attending. With a commendable background and experience of more than two decades, the present 15th National Dance Festival titled Bharata Nritya Vaibhava curated by Anuradha Vikranth featuring 15 dance styles, held on 11th January at Chowdiah Memorial Hall, was a spectacular event.
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Hot on the heels of the 39th Natya Kala Conference came the 14th edition of The Music Academy's dance festival from 3rd till 9th January 2020 at their spacious and well equipped auditorium with light and sound system. This year's festival had added features: one more slot at 2pm for dancers. There were three interactive sessions with three dancers on three days from 4pm till 5.30pm at one of the committee rooms, where participants were served coffee on the house. Prior registration was arranged and slips were required to be dropped in a box. Those whose slips were selected could attend the session for dialogue with the dancers.There were panel discussions on three mornings from 8.30am till 10am, followed by 10am and 11. 30am slots for dance. After lunch, the new 2pm slot made it quite taxing and also exhausting! Whatever may be the reason that Academy has planned this additional slot, whereby 6 more dancers could be accommodated, they will have to rethink the timing in order for public to attend the post lunch performance. The evening sessions from 6pm to 7.30pm and 7.45pm till 9.15pm were ticketed as usual whereas all other sessions are free for the public.This festival has acquired reputation for featuring the best of the classical dancers. Therefore die-hard followers plan to attend well in advance. Some of us ventured to attend all sessions. No wonder, when I am trying to review the performances which I saw during the seven days, I am dead exhausted and my mind is full of overlapping images of endless varnams, padams, tillanas and what have you. The saturation point naturally starts working upon onlookers.
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A for art, aesthetics, A grade. And in Bharatanatyam it is Alarmel Valli. That's the real A list. And what a mature, meaningful opening to the New Year's season it was at Music Academy Dance Festival....
B for bad scheduling....
C for can you spot the difference between potential and possibility?...
D for diva Dr. Kanak Rele...
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Did man's not-too-distant animal forefathers have a sense of rhythm and like to dance to music? It would certainly seem so, as the latest research at Kyoto University suggests, from their experiments with seven chimpanzees who, incidentally, have as many as 93 per cent (perhaps more) of genes in common with their human progeny. Although none of the primates had been taught to groove and received any rewards for doing so, they still broke out into spontaneous movement -- by clapping hands, tapping feet and swaying along - when played bursts of tunes on piano!The consummate way in which both nritya and nritta of Indian classical dances are linked to the geetam and vadyam of the land, appears to recognize this heritage, in being beautifully integrated in their conceptualizations and aesthetics, as well as in their manifestation, as it struck this critic once again, while watching some of the recent dance performances in the eastern metropolis.
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(Translated from the original Telugu into English by Sreelakshmi)The one work of literature that effectively brings home the quintessence of Kuchipudi is the iconic Bhamakalapam. In the vast and powerful repository of Telugu literature, this is the very first drsya prabhandha kavya (visual poetic treatise) composed, a gem of undying brilliance in its diadem.On the 9th of January 2020, one witnessed the presentation of Bhamakalapam under the aegis of Sri Sai Nataraja Academy of Kuchipudi dance. Organized in the Ravindra Bharati auditorium, Hyderabad, the role of Satyabhama was played by Dr. Rama Devi (Director, Sri Sai Nataraja Academy of Kuchipudi dance). The rest of the cast included Rajeshwari (student of Dr. Rama Devi and currently pursuing MA in Telugu University) as Krishna and the role of the sutradhara (narrator) was donned by Dr. Pasumarthi Seshubabu. The program was well supported by a capable orchestra.
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Initiated in 2013, Malavika Sarukkai's Kalavaahini Trust in its effort at positive and successful support for dance, which represents a critical part of India's cultural heritage, has worked at creating a platform for art which has excellence as its guiding principle, which motto extends to the organisational effort to ensuring hassle- free conditions for the artiste so as to enable the best contribution.
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Bangalore based Srivatsa Shandilya has been a performing arts photographer for almost 35 years. With an Engineering in computer science background, he worked in the technology media space as a photographer and was instrumental in showcasing the Indian IT growth. From 1995, he was a photographer for a technology magazine. The ever versatile Srivatsa is also a well known glamour and fashion photographer. He has clicked virtually all cine stars of the Kannada film industry and several of these images have been published in leading newspapers like the Times of India.
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