THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Soorya Festival’s schedule this year underwent last-minute changes. It was to feature K J Yesudas live as its opening event after a gap of four years.
Till 2019, the Soorya tradition was to open the festival with Yesudas’s kutcheri. This year, it was jet lag, that the veteran was nursing post his return from the US, that played the truant.
Yet, the Soorya shimmer was kept intact by Rima Kallingal and team, as they presented Neythu as the opening item on Wednesday at Tagore Theatre. The contemporary dance drama kept viewers enthralled as it told the story of the weavers of Chendamangalam.
With this, Soorya begins its 47th journey as one of the flagship cultural events that the capital hosts. And its recent versions are 111 days long, making it arguably the longest such festival in the world showcasing performances by over 2,000 artists.
Soorya’s other regulars will be performing this year too. Their performances will mostly make up the Navratri period starting Thursday, featuring performances by eminent names in classical dance such as Rama Vaidyanathan and her daughter Dakshina, Shobhana, Priyadarshini Govind, Navya Nair, Asha Sharath, Lakshmi Gopalaswamy, Meenakshi Sreenivasan, Janaki Rangarajan, and Vidya Subramaniam.
Over the period of Soorya, there will also be workshops on Mohiniyattam by Methil Devika and Bharatanatyam by Shobhana.
Yet another attraction will be the brilliance of teamwork to be showcased during the choreography and dance drama festival from October 16 to 20. Highlights of this include dance drama Mahakali performed by Hyderabad-based Anuradha and her team, Kanbathellam Kannane, presented by Kashi-based Niranjana and her team, and Nandanar Charitham, by Hyderabad-based Deepa Narayanan and her team.
The musical treatises will include the Jalsa Ghar Hindustani chamber concerts from October 21 to 25 when Ramesh Narayan, Varsha Agarwal, Juhi Pandey, Lalitha Sharma, etc. will stage concerts for those who love the Hindustani genre.
The Sindhubhairavi Carnatic music festival from October 26 to 31 will have L Subramanian’s splendors on the violin, and the vocals of maestros Sudha Raghunathan, Trivandrum Krishnakumar-Binny Krishnakumar, Unnikrishnan-Uthara, and Abhishek Raghuram.
A traditional dance festival is scheduled for November 1 to 10 featuring both established and up-and-coming names in classical dance such as Vyjayanthi Kasi and her daughter Prateeksha Kasi (Kuchipudi), Madhulita Mahapatra and group (Odissi), Shijith Nambiar-Parvathi Menon (Bharatanatyam), and Chetana-Hari (Kathak), Manju V Nair-Jagadeeswar Sukumar (Bharatanatyam), etc.
In addition, a national drama festival is set for November 14 to 20, followed by a Malayalam panorama film festival from November 21 to 30, and an art exhibition from December 1 to 20. The Indian Panorama, showcasing 20 films in various Indian languages, will be held from December 11 to 20.
As part of this series, a special women’s speech and film festival will be organised from October 11 to 15. Notable participants include ISRO project director and scientist Manju S Nair, cine actor and director Rohini, writer C S Chandrika, IPS officer Aishwarya Dongre, and journalist and news anchor Sujaya Parvathy.
Other highlights include the Mohiniyattom festival and the Mullakkara Ratnakaran Speech Series, the Soorya Youth Festival, and ‘Sugatham’, a literature festival organised as an ode to poet Sugathakumari.
The finale will be on January 21, 2025, with a dance performance by cine actor Rachana Narayanankutty and her team.