MANASI PANDYA is an Odissi dancer and a freelance journalist

Vadodara, The cultural capital of Gujarat, is all set for the ‘International Classical Dance Festival 2007’which is being hosted by ‘Purva School of Bharatanatyam’.

The festival is to take place from September 1st to 3rd where performances will be staged on 1st & 2nd where as interactive sessions between artists & art lovers will be held on the evening of 3rd September.

The Festival is designed to celebrate the sprit of promotion of classical dance & exchange of creativity between Indian as well as foreign classical dance artists in a true & live sense. The festival is organized with the aim of spreading awareness that the Indian Classical Dances percolates and penetrates the man made boundaries & that they are so rich containing great beauty that people from around the world have accepted & appreciated it.

Guru Shri Sharad Pandya [Bharatanatyam Exponent, Founder of ‘Purva’ & Director of the Festival-07’] feels that by bringing together these artists, he is happy to be able to present to the audience, an experience that will aesthetically enrich them and moreover he feels the Festival will highlight the devotional bend of these foreign artists towards Indian Classical Dances.

The current unique & first of its kind of festival in Vadodara, would embrace classical dance artists from India as well as other countries such as France, Japan, Russia, Hong Kong and Brazil. The guests of the festival are Shri Rajeev Topno [IAS], Collector, Vadodara & Smt. Jaya Thakkar, M.P , Vaoadara. The Festival President is Smt. Niru Pandya [Founder, Purva School of Bharatanatyam] The performances will be staged at the C. C. Mehta Auditorium in Vadodara.

Day one of the festival will have presentations of Purva School of Bharatanatyam - Baroda, followed by a Kathak dance presentation by Isabelle Anna from Paris, France this would be followed by Kolkata based Nivedita Daw’s Odissi performance and then a Kathak presentation by Menka Purswaney from Hong Kong. The concluding presentation of the inaugural day will be a Bharatanatyam performance by Gyanendra Bajpai, from Tokyo, Japan.

Day two of the festival will commence with a Kathak presentation by Richa Gupta from New Delhi. This would be followed by a group Odissi performance by ‘Mahari Company’ from Sao Paulo, Brazil.

Rasya Choppalli from Hong Kong would then present a Bharatanatyam performance which would be followed by Baroda based Manasi Pandya’s Odissi performance. The festival would come to its finale with the duet presentation of Bharatanatyam artists Eleonora Ukhanova and Angelina Ukhanova from Russia.

Further details of the said festival can be had from the host site; www.purva-bharatanatyam.org