WORLD DANCE DAY is going to be back after two years, Geeta Chandran reacts to not going online

The 15th edition of Natya Vriksha’s WORLD DANCE DAY festivities has arrived, with a diverse lineup of performances, workshops, lectures, and biographies that will be of interest to both dancers and non-dancers alike. The two-day event, which will be curated by Padmashri Geeta Chandran and held at the India International Centre, will begin on April 22. The event, which returns after a two-year hiatus, promises to be bigger and better in many respects, according to Chandran in an interview with Firstpost. “This is our 15th year working with the India International Centre, so we had a lot of activities planned that didn’t materialise due to the epidemic.”

The event will start with a Koodiyattam Workshop by Dr Kalamandalam Krishnendu. For Chandran, the workshop will help participants learn how the face can be mobilized to express the innermost human sentiments.“Koodiyattam has always fascinated all of us. I am from Kerala so I have always kind of wanted to take the technique of this dance form and relate it to our forms. In this workshop, one will learn how we use the face because we do the workshops across styles. It will have a healthy discussion between and amongst styles so that’s the whole idea of the Koodiyattam workshop,” she said. The morning on day 2 will feature a National Seminar on Assessing Classical Group Choreography featuring all-time greats of Indian Classical Dance Choreography. Some of the panellists include Vidushi Madhavi Mudgal, Vidushi Shama Bhate, Vidushi Dr Anita Ratnam, Vidushi Vanashree Rao, and Shri Sanjeev Bhargava as panellists. The session would be moderated by Vidushi Geeta Chandran. Also, one of the interesting features of this year’s World Dance Day program is a conversation – NARTHAKI.COM@30. Founded by Dr Anita Ratnam,  narthaki.com is not only a platform for interviews, profiles, reviews, previews, and performance listings but also a place to discover and nurture new talent in the dance world through curated commissions. This segment will feature Ratnam in conversation with Padampriya, a Dancer-Actor-Activist. There will also be an interesting session on group dance culture. “There is so much talk about group work as dance is becoming a spectacle so I just thought it’s important to have a serious kind of dialogue on where we are going. How are we really preparing the dancers to fit into groups because we always talk about individual identities in the art and then on the other side we say we should come up with group work so how do these two co-exist in a world is what we are going to discuss during this Saturday session,” said Chandran There will also be evening solo dance recites by young dancers from different parts of India. While Day one features recitals by Dr Kalamandalam Krishnendu (Koodiyattam), and Sowmya Laxmi Narayanan (Bharatanatyam), Day 2 will have Lipsa Satpathy (Odissi) and Abhimanyu Lal (Kathak) taking the charge. Chandran says that the mandate for all the performances as a curator is to stick to the classical. “This is not a place of innovation but a place to revisit traditional classical vocabulary. I feel that reference points are always important. The newness is okay but one should also find newness in the old so that’s the whole purpose of the solo presentation.” In its 15th year, Chandran says that she looks forward to the event and reasons why she didn’t go online during a pandemic. “I don’t think we have technically perfect people who understand dance. Going online just to show or just to go live like a wedding is very different from going live with performance unless you have a very good technical team with 3- 4 cameras to capture every aspect of the dance. I feel that it’s doing more disservice. I have seen many live shows and it’s pathetic. Being a celebrated artist in Indian classical Bharatanatyam, who is recognized for her work in theatre, dance, education, videos, and films, Chandran says that with festivals like these, she wants artists to think that dance as an art form can pay them also. “The salient feature of this festival is I have always paid my artist well. I always want them to go back thinking that there is a future in art and money of course. I might not be very visible on the billboard but that money goes to the artist and I think that’s very important. The day I don’t have enough money to pay my artist, I call it the day,” she says. As founder and President of the Dance Company Natya Vriksha, Chandran’s areas of engagement have ranged from pure classical work and research to intense preparation of classical soloists. She is also the Professor Adjunct at Birla Institute of Technology, Pilani, driven by the strong belief that dance should make a difference in life and living. And she is happy to see that people are finally realizing the value of learning dance art forms like classical.

She says, “The interest in the art and engagements with the art is much much wider today. People realize the value of learning dance art forms like classical music because with it goes a lot of discipline and understanding of the whole tradition. I think there were 4 gurus earlier but now every street has a classical dance school so I think the popularity has grown and it is internationally known also.” She sums up by saying that “it might not be as lucrative as Bollywood but silently it’s there.”

Nivedita’s work experience includes covering fashion weeks in Milan, Pakistan, Vancouver, Hong Kong, Dubai, and award functions like IIFA and TOIFA. 

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