Date:04/01/2009 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2009/01/04/stories/2009010454560500.htm

Front Page

Dance festival gets under way

Special Correspondent

The third edition features a series of performances and lecture demonstrations

— Photo: V. Ganesan

FOCUS ON DANCE: Roland Herrmann, Consul-General of the Federal Republic of Germany in Chennai, releasing a brochure at the inauguration of Dance Festival 2009 in Chennai on Saturday. It is being received by Sreedhar Potarazu, CEO, VitalSpring Technologies. N. Murali, president, The Music Academy, is in the picture.

CHENNAI: The third edition of the Music Academy’s annual dance festival was inaugurated on Saturday. The festival, featuring a series of performances and lecture demonstrations, will continue for the next six days.

Roland Herrmann, Consul-General, Federal Republic of Germany, Chennai, inaugurated the festival.

Though it was only in its third year, the festival was embedded in a rich tradition of different dance styles in southern India, he said. It was obvious that dance was a very basic form of humanity itself, and probably a constituent form of human communication. Dance was part of spiritual and religious life, as it had always been. In India, it was not just about learning dance techniques, as perhaps it was in the West. Here, it was always about a dancer’s way of life and of understanding the world, he said.

Trying to understand the art would enable one to understand more about the world, Mr. Herrmann said.

He also released the brochure of the festival.

Music Academy president N. Murali said that two years ago, the Academy experimented with the idea of a separate dance festival in commemoration of the pioneering role it played in preserving and propagating Bharatanatyam. In 1931, the dance programme of the Thiruvalaputhur Kalyani daughters Rajalakshmi and Jeevarathnam was held under the auspices of the Academy. This was the first time that a dance recital was held under the auspices of the Academy. In fact, this was the first time that a dance recital was performed on stage in a cultural organisation. The event also marked the renaissance of Bharatanatyam.

Encouraged by the response to the dance shows in the past couple of years, the executive committee of the Academy decided to make it an annual event, he said.

At Dance Festival 2009, Bharatanatyam has a key role to play. It also features Kuchipudi, Kathak, Mohini Attam, Nangiar Koothu, Kathakali and Odissi. Sreedhar Potarazu of VitalSpring Technologies highlighted the strong cultural roots that dance came from, a legacy that had survived for many centuries.