Nrityangan Nritya Utsav to be held today

Silchar, Jan 6: Nrityangan’s high-octane Nritya festival (dance festival) 2018, which is considered as one of the biggest cultural events, will be held on January 7 at Rajiv Bhawan here from 5 pm onwards. 

The centre of attraction will be Kolkata based legendary dancer Dr Mahua Mukherjee’s Kabiguru Rabindrath Tagore’s dance drama ‘Rabir Gaane Asthaika’. She is an exponent of Gaudiya Nritya, a form of Indian classical dance. She is also a researcher and teacher at Rabindra Bharati University and Dean of the Faculty of Fine Arts. She and her husband Dr Amitava Mukherjee have been working for the revival of Gaudiya Nritya since the 80s decade.

 Dr Mahua Mukherjee has given some stellar and delivered some enlightening lectures as visiting professor at the University of Oklahoma, United States of America. She learnt the dance from Bratindrath, Sashi Mahato, rottam Sanyal, Gambhir Singh Mudha, Mukund Das Bhattacharjee and other practitioners of the Chhau, chni, Kushan and Kirtaniya traditions.  There will be a host of dance dramas, group dances and group songs. The evening promises to be treat for those who are willing to learn and get mesmerized by the nuances of Gaudiya Nritya.

 Addressing the media-persons at a press-meet held in the conference hall of a hotel in Silchar on Friday, Dr Mahua Mukherjee said, “I am an integral part of the dance department in Dhaka University. It is perhaps the first University to have started such a department. Gaudiya Nritya was almost on the periphery of the cultural world but for the Ministry of Culture under the Government of India, it is still alive in the minds of the people. It is good to see that we have been able to organize such a gala event here”. Dr Mahua Mukherjee is also the director of institutes Gaudiya Nritya Bharati and Mitrayan.  A five-day workshop was conducted with around 250 students.  “Participants of this workshop will also perform in the main event. We are hopeful that it will add another feather to Nrityangan’s cap. Government impetus is necessary and it is really encouraging and inspiring to see that Gaudiya Nritya is filly getting its due from the mainstream”, Dr Mukherjee added.