Kanupriya - An Odissi choreography presentation by Shubhada Varadkar at Khajuraho festival of dances 2015. Shubhada is a disciple of late guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. She has choreographed and performed at many prestigious national and international dance festivals. Her few recent productions- 'Journey to Divinity', "Chitrangada', 'Kanupriya' and 'Amrutghanu' are a few ballets that have won her laurels from the art lovers across the world. Kanupriya is a tale of mythological love between Radha and Krishna, but this is has a gender twist. This tale is about how Radha herself views this relationship. This is a journey of her soul to become one with God. She herself feels that Kanu is her eternal playmate. Other times, he is protector, guardian… sometimes even she feels maternal love for ...
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Its World Dance Day today. And on this special day I am presenting a photo essay of a very special performance. I have written a little bit about it before. I am sharing these photographs for the first time. It was a truly scintillating performance by Dr. Yashoda Rao Thakore a well known Kuchipudi dancer. But this is a rare public performance of Devadasi dance hitherto a dance by courtesans either in temples or in royal courts. For the first time, Devadasi dance has been presented and recognised as an individual classical Indian dance form. Here in this performance the dancer is actually sitting in the whole dance and narrating the story by just her facial and body expressions. That's also a rarity for an Indian classical dance. The way Yashoda Rao Thakore puts it is really mesmerising....
Read MoreThe beauty of this photo is also the character itself. Sonali Mahapatra is performing Oddissi at Khajuraho festival of dances 2015. An accomplished dancer, Sonali lost her major hearing power due to a medical negligence when she was just five. But she never let that come as a hinderance in her commitment to learn dance. She can't listen to swara and hence now uses a hearing aid and dances by listening to just the beats of the taal. ...
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