NCPA’s Pravaha Dance Festival leaves the audience spellbound

NCPA Pravaha Dance Festival is one of the prestigious platforms to showcase the creation of different skilled & unique performing art experiences.

This year festival celebrated the new choreographies of various well-known veterans of dance & theatre field showcasing Sankalan by Padmashri Madhavi Mudgal & Troup, Grishma-Varsha-Shishir-Basant by Vaibhav Arekar & Sankhya Dance Company, Svakranti by Padma Bhushan Mallika Sarabhai & Troup, Anekanta by Padmashri Geeta Chandran & Natya Vriksha Dance Company on December 16th & 21st 2018 at Tata Theatre, NCPA. It was house full dance theatre for both the days.

Sankalan by Madhavi Mudgal highlighted the different choreographies of her. The complete performance had the unique & enthralling package of beautiful & specific welcome dance movement depicting Ahvan-Rig Vedic Hymns to Agni, Various geometric dance sequences suiting the finest rhythmic pattern identified as “Ragamalika Pallavi”, Teevra Madhyam etc. As she is known for the unique style of music that she uses for dance choreography reflected in presentation Taopoi in which she showcased a traditional folk tale from Odisha. The entire artists were at par excellence in their presentation to make the production a beautiful & fine one.

https://www.facebook.com/NCPAMumbai/videos/597712437311669/

Moving to another beautiful & soul evoking dance production Grishma-Varsha-Shishir-Basant by Vaibhav Arekar & Sankhya Dance Company depicting various feelings & mental turmoil with which a human being go through during their journey of life. The audience could identify with the feelings of “inner conflict, love, unions, and alone within, hope for bright better in Happiness” by the beautifully choreographed dance movement based on Bharatnatyam dance form performed by the artist of Sankhya Dance Company and by Arekar himself which was the highlight of the presentation.

The lighting direction by Sushant P Jadhav was remarkable & drew special attention of the audience. The audience was mesmerised by the performance & couldn’t stop themselves from clapping for more than a minute or so with a standing ovation for both the productions of the evening.

Svakranti by Mallika Sarabhai & Troup was with full of motivating message for all the women of society. In an imaginary conversation with Mahatma Gandhi during the performance, she highlighted the struggled journey of women seeking for Truth on the bases of his non-violence ideology & forecasted the relevance of this path in the current scenario of violent situation in society. The intellectual concept needs an intellectual audience to understand and accept it. We wish for more & more creative productions to come up with such impactful social awareness. Hats off to her work.

https://www.facebook.com/NCPAMumbai/videos/2219676554957511/

Anekanta by Padmashri Geeta Chandran – Natya Vriksha Dance Company represented the philosophy of Skilful, Aesthetically beautiful & Crisp Geometric dance choreography woven together on the bases of the traditional composition from the traditional repertoire of music & dance experimenting within the boundaries of our Tradition Bharatnatyam structure. It was again an enthralling performance with the highlights’ being the Navbagunjara story derived from an incident from the Mahabharata of Odisha where Arjuna encounters with an unusual huge beast which seems to him like an amalgamation of many creatures of forest which ultimately turn as an incarnation of Lord Vishnu. The audience was spellbound by the performance. Each artist performed their best.

https://www.facebook.com/NCPAMumbai/videos/535264156971343/

The basic objective of Pravaha Dance Festival was to provide the platform to the new skilled performing arts creativity of Indian dance is justified by showcasing such productions. Hats off to Swapnokalpa Dasgupta, Head of Dance Programming NCPA.