Three-day ballet festival opens at Kamani theatre

New Delhi: A three-day festival of ballet dance opened at the Kamani theatre in the capital with performances by Manipuri guru Rajkumar Singhajit Singh and Maitreyee Pahari.

The festival will feature six groups from India and Bangladesh including Sadhya Group led by Santosh Nair, Imperial Fernando Ballet Company, Sadhona Group from Bangladesh and the Shri Ram Bharatiya Kala Kendra. "The genre of ballet dancing is no longer popular in India because it does not have exponents. It flourished with dancer Uday Shankar and I wanted to revive ballet as a dance form. It is very popular in the West, where the concept of ballet is different," Pahari, who conceived the festival, told IANS. "Amader jatra Holo Shuru" based on a poem by Rabindranath Tagore was presented by Manipuri dancer Singhajit Singh and the philosophy of the bauls of Bengal was brought to the stage by Pahari in her choreography "Ektara Pathsala". The folk "baul" dance was rendered by dancers of the Lok Chhanda Cultural Unit. The Sadhya Group will present a contemporary composition about human relationship with nature March 21 while the Imperial Fernando Ballet Company will stage the story of ballet dancer Nikya and warrior Solor in the Russian tradition. IANS