BHUBANESWAR: For the connoisseurs of classical dance and music of Cuttack city, there are reasons to cheer over the developments taking shape in recent years.
The millennium city – once known as the cradle of culture – had hardly any festivals of dance and music to boast of.
However, with the annual events like Barabati dance festival, Gunjan Dance Academy’s dance and music festival and theatre personality Kartik Rath’s Cuttack international dance festival, the city’s annual cultural calendar is appearing vibrant these days.
And the latest addition to the annual calendar has been the Laxman Gadnaik memorial dance and music festival that concluded on Tuesday.
Gadnaik, who passed away a decade ago, was the founder of the famed National Music Association (NMA) that had legendary artistes like Sunanda Patnaik, Sanjukta Panigrahi, Sikandar Alam and Pranab Patnaik as students while pioneers like musician K. Adi Narayan Rao and Odissi Guru Deba Prasad Das served it as faculty members.
To perpetuate the legacy of the extraordinary patron and promoter of arts, Gadnaik’s family members and admirers came together to launch an annual festival of dance and music last year featuring celebrated artistes like Odissi singer Ramahari Das, Odissi dancer Sujata Mohapatra and Mahari exponent Rupashree Mohapatra.
The three-day festival this year expanded its horizon by adding Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchpudi and Chhau dances besides Hindustani and Odissi instrumental music. It also invited artistes from across the country and from abroad that made a mark as a major cultural event of the State.
Solo performances by Puducherry-based eminent Odissi dancer Sangeeta Dash and US-based Odissi dancer-choreographer Jyoti Rout apart, two budding and promising Odissi dancers from the USA – Pallavi Das and Shefali Ray – performed as soloists in the festival.
Of the three troupes that staged group Odissi presentations, the 10-member troupe from Vrindaban led by Kunjalata Mishra that included three gifted Russian Odissi dancers, had the most memorable performance.
Solo Kuchipudi recital by M.Srilekha from Hyderabad and Bharatanatyam by the Puducherry based Bharatanatyam dancers’ trio – Divya, Kavya and Manasa – won audience appreciation but the Kathak recital by the artistes of Niccon Dance Academy from Kolkata could not live up to expectations.
However, the unmasked martial dance of Mayurbhanja Chhau presented by Bhubaneswar-based Mayur Art Centre won accolades for its pulsating presentation.
Popular Odissi singer Sukant Kundu’s scintillating recital and the neat jugalbandi of sitar and tabla by Kolkata-based artistes Samiran Ganguly and Sangram Ray respectively apart, the best treat for the connoisseurs of music was the orchestra composed and conducted by mardal exponent Dhaneswar Swain.
The presentation was a brilliant attempt to explore the beauty of the intricate rhythmic patterns produced by the ensemble of percussion instruments.
