NCPA Pravaha Dance Festival 2023 – Day 2

Manodarpan
Odissi by Sharmila Biswas & Troupe
&
Converse
Kuchipudi & Bharatanatyam by Amrita Lahiri & Pavitra Bhat

Sharmila Biswas is a senior disciple of Kelucharan Mohapatra. One of the leading dancers and choreographers in India, Biswas is a recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi award for her contribution to Odissi dance. She is the Artistic Director at Odissi Vision and Movement Centre, an institution created for the promotion of Odissi through research into various dimensions of Odiya culture.

Manodarpan is a series of stories, with all the human weaknesses and strengths, each expressing a certain emotion and its intricacies. They generate the desired Rasas in the minds of the audience. Manodarpan elevates us to a spiritual level, without any reference to Gods and Goddesses or Mythology.

Amrita Lahiri is an Indian classical dancer specialising in Kuchipudi. She studied Kuchipudi under Anuradha Nehru, Swapnasundari and Seetha Nagajothy. She is an empanelled artiste with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and has toured as a soloist in India and abroad, presenting Kuchipudi from its traditional origins to its contemporary forms. She presents the beauty and joy of dance, while maintaining the precision and soul of the classical Kuchipudi form.

Pavitra Bhat is a Bharatanatyam exponent who trained at Kalanjali under Sikkil Vasanthakumari and later under the renowned exponent Deepak Mazumdar. To perpetuate and promote dance, Bhat established P.A.V.I. (Pavitra Art Visual

Institute). The institute boasts almost 350 students with many of them being awarded with CCRT’s Junior Scholarship. Bhat is an ‘A’ grade artiste of Doordarshan and has performed in India and abroad.

Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi are the two classical Indian dance forms that are perhaps closest to each other, however, they are also distinct dance languages. Amrita and Pavitra, the two dynamic soloists come together in a duet for the first time to ‘converse’ in their own dance languages- evoking the same idea, entering a friendly competition or taking on different characters in the same story.

Box Office now open.