Four years ago, when Bharatanatyam dancer Keerthana Ravi made Mumbai her home, she came across a strange dichotomy
Prakriti Dance's production on Shikhandi
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Four years ago, when Bharatanatyam dancer Keerthana Ravi made Mumbai her home, she came across a strange dichotomy. While there was no dearth of artistes trained in Indian classical dance forms in the city, the number of platforms available to them to showcase their talent was disproportionately low. "I hail from Bengaluru, where there is a strong tradition of patronage for Indian classical dance forms. However, in Mumbai, such performances largely saw friends and family of the dancers in the audience," says Keerthana, who then decided to do something about it and started Rasa Bodhi Arts foundation to propagate the Indian arts through collaborations, events and workshops, and Evam, a classical dance festival.
Sat-gati by Parshwanath Upadhye's Punyah Dance Company
As the festival enters its fourth year, Keerthana recalls how the challenge of patronage played out at the level of funding, too, where potential sponsors would give a lukewarm response to the fact that the number of viewers didn't run into thousands. She ultimately decided to turn to the audience, making Evam the first dance festival to be crowd-funded in India. "We received a great response, and the campaign turned into an online engagement programme of sorts, through which we earned a lot of goodwill. Many of our contributors made it a point to attend the festival and the journey continued," she shares.
Gandhi by Satyajit Dhanajayan
Spread over three days, the 2018 edition of Evam brings together two artistes or troupes from varying traditions every evening. Interestingly, the festival opens with a dance sequence by Ashley Lobo's contemporary dance company, Navdhara Indian Dance. "Each dance style brings with it its own audience. We felt this was a good way of giving the viewers exposure to other dance forms and creating a mutual exchange of audiences," Keerthana explains. Which is why, the inaugural performance will be followed by Satyajit Dhanajayan's latest choreographic work, Gandhi. An introspective piece, it uses the technique and style of Bharatanatyam to delve into the idea of Gandhi, and the relevance of his philosophy today.
Keerthana Ravi
"We will use four kinds of abhinaya rooted in the realms of bodily movements, spoken word, costumes and props, and the spiritual to think, reflect and dwell on Mahatma Gandhi. Each audience member takes home his own message. There is no right or wrong here," Dhanajayan shares, adding that the dance sequence will make subtle use of music through the pakhawaj and sarangi, which are usually not associated with Bharatanatyam performances.
The next two days will showcase performances including one by noted Bharatanatyam dancer from Chennai, Meenakshi Srinivasan, while the finale brings down Prakriti Dance company from the US, whose production, Amba Shikhandi: A Journey of Courage, is inspired by the story of the feisty character from the Mahabharata.
The popularity of the festival has grown over the years, making it easier to get sponsors, even as it remains partly crowd-funded. "The idea is to bridge the gap between artistes and the audience," says Keerthana. "And the online movement we built through the crowd-funding campaign was a step in that direction."
ON: February 23, 7 pm, St Andrew's Auditorium, Bandra West; February 24 and 25, 7 pm, Ravindra Natya Mandir, Prabhadevi.
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