Latest news with #Navarasas
Time of India
03-07-2025
- Entertainment
- Time of India
A cultural event celebrates storytelling through theatre
Stage Parichay 2025 aimed to reconnect children with Indian culture through storytelling and theatre. The event featured Sanskrit chants, mythological plays, and a Navarasas performance, emphasizing values and imagination. A debate between Kali and Kalki explored themes of destruction and rebirth, concluding with a devotional song and recognition of the young participants. Stage Parichay 2025, held at a city club offered a powerful blend of storytelling, tradition, and theatre aimed at reconnecting children with Indian culture in an increasingly screen-dominated era. The event sought to revive the spirit of grandmother's tales through engaging performances and traditional narratives. From Sanskrit shlokas to mythological plays, the program emphasized values, imagination, and human connection. The day opened with a soulful chanting of Sanskrit verses by children aged 4 to 14, their synchronized voices creating an atmosphere of reverence that set the tone for the evening. Two plays followed, using humor and sensitivity to explore moral lessons, before moving into a powerful enactment of the Ram-Parshuram dialogue, a dramatic clash of dharma, anger, and restraint. One of the most striking moments of the evening was the solo performance of the Navarasas —the nine classical emotions—by a young participant, who conveyed each rasa using only gestures and silence. Her performance earned thunderous applause and left many in the audience visibly moved. Another highlight was a thought-provoking theatrical depiction of the Kalki Avatar , which served as a symbolic beacon of hope and reform amidst modern chaos. The emotional peak of the evening came during a debate staged between Kali and Kalki , exploring themes of destruction and rebirth. by Taboola by Taboola Sponsored Links Sponsored Links Promoted Links Promoted Links You May Like One plan. Total peace of mind. ICICI Pru Life Insurance Plan Get Quote Undo Questions posed by the young actors—'Has the world gone beyond reform?' and 'Is darkness preparing the way for light?'—left the audience in contemplative silence. The event concluded with a devotional song, 'O Kanha, ab to Murli ki,' bringing the program to an emotional close. All participating children were honored with certificates, celebrating their enthusiasm, dedication, and growth. Ask ChatGPT
The Hindu
21-05-2025
- Entertainment
- The Hindu
Bharatanatyam exponent Priyadarsini Govind to launch an online abhinaya course
It's a warm summer morning. Priyadarsini Govind is at her performance space and black box theatre, KG1 studios in Royapettah, Chennai. She is sitting alone — on the floor — dressed comfortably in a pair of tracks and a T-shirt, absorbed in her thoughts with a notepad and a pencil in hand. For the last few weeks, this renowned Bharatanatyam artiste has been busy giving the finishing touches to the four-part certificate course on abhinaya, which will be launched online in July. It is an extension of Learning Ladder, an abhinaya pedagogy she developed two years ago. 'Any art form is a work-in-progress,' says Priyadarsini. Learning Ladder found its genesis in the years of the pandemic when she conducted a series of immersive abhinaya sessions online — on the Ashtanayikas and Navarasas — for dance students from across the globe. 'After every session, where I would teach abhinaya for a composition,' says Priyadarsini, ' I would spend hours thinking about how students need to experience the rigour of a structured learning (of abhinaya) that could allow them to ease their way into a composition. The more I thought about it, the more I was convinced why I should come up with a system that could help learners to look beyond lyrics to understand abhinaya.' After several days of contemplation and many rounds of discussions with senior students, Learning Ladder began to take shape. It's built on the premise of teaching abhinaya to anyone in the field of performing arts — dancers, theatre practitioners, and storytellers. Learning Ladder envisages learning as a process of training the mind and understanding how to communicate what one intends to in a way that is effective and evocative. 'Abhinaya is all about imagination,' explains Priyadarsini. 'But to explore the honesty of an emotion and to convey it meaningfully require training, practice, curiosity and questioning. The uniqueness of Learning Ladder is that it looks at abhinaya both as a personal expression of emotions and a collective consciousness as far as the impact of the emotions are concerned. Hence, a great deal of thought has gone into designing a system of learning that does not at any point intend to create clones because every emotion is different.' Since its inception in 2022, Learning Ladder has unfolded as a series of modules (in the form of 24 videos) where Priyadarsini and her students develop and put into practice ideas and exercises. These are built on a learning framework that draws from the Natya Shastra and Abhinaya Darpana. The focus, however, ison imagination and the training needed to translate it into visual expression. For the past two years, Priyadarsini has also been travelling extensively to conduct Learning Ladder workshops. 'As far as abhinaya is concerned what gets across to the audience sometimes may be quite different from what the artiste has in mind. Abhinaya is not merely instinctive, a structured training can go a long way in helping to communicate the emotions better.' Priyadarsini feels Learning Ladder can fill the gap. 'In today's world learning, in general, is not in-depth, and often lacks a broader perspective. Look at the pace of life now,' says the dancer as she goes back in time to recall her abhinaya sessions with the legendary Kalanidhi Narayanan. 'I went to her as a nine-year-old and my understanding of abhinaya grew with each session. Kalanidhi mami would delve deep into a character, which made the expressions deep and layered. We'd spend days to unravel a poetry. The experience was phenomenal. Learning Ladder draws from this experience and my own discovery as a performer and teacher,' says Priyadarsini.
