Kathak dancer Shivani Varma mesmerizes TEDxGateway audience with her performance at NCPA |PERFECT WOMAN FASHION AND LIFESTYLE MAGAZINE
Kathak dancer Shivani Varma mesmerizes TEDxGateway audience with her performance at NCPA
Guess what? Kathak’s versatility as a dance form was on full display at the NCPA last weekend, with dancer Shivani Varma’s recital to Sahil Vasudeva’s piano composition.
Kathak dance, which traces its origin back to 400 BCE to the bhakti movement, was performed in the courts of the northern Indian kingdoms. The word “Kathak” is derived from katha, meaning “the art of storytelling.”
The word “Kathak” is taken from the two distinct expressions of Sanskrit (namely ‘Katha’ and ‘Kathakar’), which is the Indian Vedic language. While Katha implies ‘story, ‘Kathakar’ means story teller. A Kathak performance tells various stories through dance, songs, and music, similar to opera. Kathak dancers tell the stories through their hand movements, footwork, and facial expressions.
Having said that, renowned Kathak dancer Shivani Varma recently presented a splendid show to the tune of pianist Sahil Vasudeva before the audience at the TEDxGateway at the NCPA Mumbai.
The programme was organized by TEDxGateway at the NCPA, Mumbai. Shivani, who is a noted Kathak dancer for her innovation and improvisation in traditional Kathak technique, performed a special collaboration leaving the audiences mesmerized. The audiences were awestruck when she performed Indian traditional dance style to a western musical style.
Talking about her dance piece, she quips, “This collaboration created especially for this event takes you on the crest of the waves, evocative of ocean tides, moonlit nights, and mermaids. This unique recital of an Indian traditional dance style to a western musical style, is a celebration of life and the living. Choreographing this piece was a journey into the depths of the imagery of an ocean and has many philosophical interpretations for the viewers. I feel that Indian classical dances have deepness like an ocean.”
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