The scheduled four-day India International Dance Festival (IIDF) kicked off at the Bhanja Kala Mandap auditorium here on Thursday evening with Odishi dancer Sahana, the youngest dancer of the festival who is a student of standard four from liverpool in the US, staging the opening performance.
The multi-city event, hosted by the Samskritiki cultural society, is exclusively for young Indian classical dancers, for which it is billed as “Future Faces”, said festival chief coordinator Swadhin Kumar. Over 100 dancers of seven Indian classical dance styles under the age of 30 are participating in the festival that aims at selecting promising dancers for the next festivals happening in Hyderabad, Bengaluru, New Delhi and North East, he added.
Among those who staged outstanding performances in the Odishi category were Harekrushna Dhall, a fabulous male Odishi dancer from Odisha, Kolkata-based Odishi dancer Chirasri Roy, US-based Odishi dancer Sharanya Mukhopadhyay and Dibyashree Panda from Bhubaneswar. In the Odishi section, Bidyutprava Mohanty from Paradip, Gayatri Nayak from Bhubaneswar and Abhipsa Das from Rourkela were impressive.
In Bharatanatyam, Sophia Sar and Karuna Ketan Bhakta, both from Kolkata; Deepa Pillai from Bengaluru; Debasmita Nayak, Debashree Das, Pratikshya Das and Aksnkshya Patra, all from Rourkela, impressed the audience.
Kathak was represented by Debarati Dasgupta from Kolkata. The Cuttack-based Sree Dance Academy of Guru Namita Ray had a scintillating group presentation.
The festival was inaugurated by five internationally-acclaimed Odishi dancers of Odisha who have been the winners of Ustad Bismillah Khan national youth awards; They were Madhusmita Mohanty, Yudhisthir Nayak, lingaraj Pradhan, Sonali Mohapatra and Rajasri Praharaj. “They have been role models for the young dancers and, hence, they were specially invited to inaugurate the event meant for young dancers,” stated festival advisor and scholar Kedar Mishra.
Samskritiki president Rina Routray presided over the inaugural ceremony.