Khajuraho Dance Festival Begins with Kathak Dance
Bhopal. 43rd Khajuraho dance Festival was inaugurated on open sky dais near West Temples Group by the guests by lighting a lamp at Khajuraho. The festival was begun with the Kathak dance of Shri Anuj Mishra of New Delhi followed by Odissi dance presented by Sanchita Bahttacharya, an artist of Kolkata. Group Kathak dance was presented by Jaishree Acharya of Gudgaon in the end. Ten artists of Madhya Pradesh were awraded with Rupankar Kala award carrying a reward of Rs. 21 thousand to each artist.
As every year the festival will be organised from February 20 to 26. On the second day of the festival, Odissi dance will be presented by Sagun Bhutani of Gurgaon followed by Kathak duet dance by Yasmin Singh of Raipur and Odissi group dance by Daksha Mashruwala of Mumbai. On February 22, Bharatnatyam by Lavanya Shankar of Coimbatore, Kathak group dance by Rachna Yadav of Gurgaon, Mayurbhanj Chhau dance by Sadashiv Pradhan of Bhubaneshwar and Kathak dance by Shinjini Kulkarni will be presented. Moreover on February 23 Kathak dance by Sandeep Malik of Kolkata and Shikha Khare of New Delhi, Mohiniattam group dance by Pallavi Krishnan of Trichur and Kathak group dance by Rita Mitra Mustafi with Kathak dance theatre of U.S.A. will be showcased.
On February 24 Kathak dance by manjiri Kiran of Jaipur and Rasmani of Bhopal, Bharatnatyam by Rukmani Vijay Kumar of Bengaluru, Kuchipudi group dance by Vanshri Rao of Delhi. Similarly on February 25 Odissi dance by Somya Bose of Bhubaneshwar, Kathak by Nilakshi Roy of New Delhi, Maniupuri duet dance by Mansi Thiyam of Imphal and Suchitra Harmalkar of Indore will be presented.
On the concluding day of festival i.e. February 26, Bharatnatyam by Amit Chowdhary and kalpatru of Bangladesh, Kathak duet by Vidha Lal and Abhimanyu Lal, Odissi dance by Gori Diwedi and Bharatnatyam by Jyotsana Jagannath of Chennai will be presented.
In the seven day festival the Madhya Pardesh State Rupankar Art Awards and exhibition (Alankaran), art journey of Indian dance style Chhau (Nepathya), fair of Fine Arts (Art mart) fair of indigineous art tradition (Hunar), deliberation of artists and art critics(kala varta), films focussing artists and art traditions (Chal Chitra) and kala gatha of Bangladesh (Atithi Devo Bhava) will become centers of attraction.
MLAs Shri Pushpendra Pathak, Shri R.D. Tripathi, President Nagar parishad Khajuraho Smt. Kavita Singh and Commissioner Culture and Secretary Shri Rajesh Mishra were present on the occasion.
