 Launch of
Attendance 09/10
- P Praveen
Kumar, Bangalore
e-mail: praveendance@hotmail.com June 11, 2010 The evening
of June 5, 2010 was a historic day for the male dancers of Karnataka, for
7 of them came together at Alliance Francaise. 'Attendance,' one of its
kind, dance annual of India, edited-designed-published by well known dance
critic-scholar Ashish Mohan Khokar, featuring male soloists of Karnataka
in this year's issue, which was also one of its kind, was released at a
grand function which the dance fraternity attended in droves. The function
was organized by Alliance Francaise and BSM (Bangalore School of Music). Officially
releasing the book, the guests of the evening, Chiranjeev Singh, President
of Alliance Francaise and former Principal Secretary, Govt of Karnataka
and our Ambassador to UNESCO, doyenne of Kathak and choreography Guru Maya
Rao and arts patron Vimala Rangachar spoke about their association with
Ashish Khokar and his father, late Prof. Mohan Khokar. An interesting video
presentation on Mohan Khokar's work was shown, wherein his various facets
and his concerned work for the art field came across in that short film
on him. This was followed by performances by all the male dancers who have
been featured in the book (Tushar Bhatt, Sheshadri Iyengar, BP Sweekruth,
Satyanarayan Raju, K Murali Mohan, Sridhar Jain and I). All of us danced
individually and collectively in the end.Personally,
more than dancing, it was a great day for me, as I have always admired
the great Mohan Khokar and his son Ashish Khokar, for being instrumental
in showing the previous generation artists' work to the next / following
generations, so that we all get some inspiration from their dance, pictures,
interviews and so on. So, for me to be featured in this book / collection
is a big achievement. I will always cherish this day.A well organized
function, it had some of the stalwarts from the art field of Bangalore
in attendance, like Guru MK Saroja, Guru May Rao, Gurus Bhanumathi, Padmini
Ravi, Vyjayanthi Kashi, Lalitha Srinivasan, Chitra Venugopal, the Kirans,
Padmaja Suresh, Jayachandran of Attakalari, Madhu Nataraj, Keerti Ramgopal,
STEM dancers, authors Akumal Ramachander, Subba Rao, musician Aruna Sunderlal
and many more. It was a unique
evening and shall remain in the memory of the audience and artistes for
long. Hail Attendance!
Praveen
Kumar is the director of Chithkala School of Dance in Bangalore. |
