HYDERABAD: Mark your calendars, dance- and music-lovers. This weekend, October 5-8 will see well-known scholars, art critics and performing artists from around featured in a classical-arts festival titled Nartanam Conclave 2018 with lectures, discussions, and debates as well as dance performances from different genres. These include most of the major classical dance forms of India, namely Kuchipudi, Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Sattriya, Manipuri, Mohiniattam, and Kathakali, as well as Vilasini Natyam and Perini. There will also be a special session on music composition for Annamacharya krithis. As music-lovers would know, Annmacharya keerthanas have been found without notation and many great musicians have been tuning these lyrics for the past many decades.
Given that there will be so many stakeholders–performers, academicians, critics, patrons, bureaucrats, organisers and students–all gathered together, the festival aims to contribute substantially to the preservation and promotion of the intangible heritage that Indian classical dance represents. Of course, one must include the spectators too in this list as they are indeed stakeholders in a major sense! In fact, it is heartening to note that the event has been thrown open to the public with entry free and open to all. The venue is Dr Marri Channa Reddy Human Resource Development Institute of Telangana.
The four-day conclave is being organised by Sahrdaya Arts Trust, Hyderabad, which publishes the quarterly journal Nartanam. It is supported by the Department of Language and Culture, Telangana; Dr Marri Channa Reddy Human Resource Development Institute, Hyderabad; Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi; and Shanta Biotech.
There will be performances from younger-generation artistes like Kuchipudi dancer Yamini Reddy and Bharatanatyam exponent Vamsi Madhavi as well as seasoned, widely-known artistes like Kathakali maestro Kalamandalam Gopi Asan and Mohiniattam dancer Dr Deepti Omchery Bhalla. These performances will be part of the evening sessions.
What dance-lovers can look forward is stimulating sessions on the topic of Music for Dance. Explains Madhavi Puranam, Chief Editor, Nartanam: “The seminar on Music for Dance will have lec-Dems and presentations of papers by renowned dance and music experts, and bureaucrats. These will include critic Sunil Kothari; Manjari Sinha; former DG of ICCR, Suresh Goel; former secretary, Sangeet Natak Akademi, Jayant Kastuar; and vice chancellor of Telugu University, professor SV Sathyanarayana.”
There will also be participation by many experts from Hyderabad. So, dancer-scholars, musicians and entrepreneurs like Dr Ananda Shankar Jayant, Professor Jonnalagadda Anuradha, KI Varaprasad Reddy, Professor Aruna Bhikshu, Anupama Kylash, Kala Krishna, Gandham Shankar Rao, Sattiraju Venumadhav, etc., will be featured in this seminar. There will also be the release the special issue of Nartanam on Kalamandalam Gopi during this conclave.
As dancer Anupama Kylash explains: “The dance traditions of the hereditary temple dancers, was always a comprehensive blend of music, literature and dance. It is the same linkage that we are striving to maintain in Vilasini Natyam.”
These presentations and discussions are intended to bring into focus the problems and pressing concerns of dance and dancers and come up with solutions to the same. The event will provide an excellent forum for debates on the challenges facing the classical arts in the country today.
Adds Madhavi: “We are trying to build a spectator base as well as a group of patrons by sensitising people from various walks of life to these arts. We want to make a difference to the common perception that art especially dance is all about entertainment. You and me, we the people, have to be the patrons too. This is our larger goal.”