Mahanagar mahotsav gets under way

Dance ballets of Kuchipudi and Bharatnatyam became highlight of ‘Mahanagar Mahotsav' a cultural festival continuing at Ganjam Kala Parishad in the city. This five-day cultural festival to promote talents of the city would conclude on Friday. Students of ‘Sanskruti Bhavanam', an organisation involved in teaching of Kuchipudi and Bharatnatyam enthralled the audience during the festival on Wednesday and Thursday evenings. The performers were students of Guru Laxman Das, a major exponent of these two south Indian classical dance formats in south Odisha. “It is my great satisfaction that youngsters of this land of Odishi are also capable of high rated performances of Kuchipudi and Bharatnatyam, which hints that traditional dance forms have no boundaries,” Mr. Das said. His students had performed a dance ballet ‘Sita Swayamvaram' in Kuchipudi format on Wednesday evening. Thirteen of his students were part of this performance. The character of Ram was played by A.Silpita while Sita's role was played by S.Nilima. The dancers performed the story from Ramayana to the rhythm and tune of chants in honour of Lord Ram sung by Lata Mangeshkar. This Kuchipuda ballet was more ‘abhinaya'-based. The same troupe performed another ballet based on ‘Draupadi Vastraharan' on Thursday evening. This time they used Bharatnatyam for their recital. The performance started with ‘alaripu' and ‘tillana' and during abhinaya the performers enacted the scene of ‘vastraharan' of Mahabharat.  

Sources: The Hindu, The Telegraph, Orissa Sambad, OrissaBarta