Featuring nearly 200 dancers and delegates from 10 countries, the stage is set for the four-day India International dance Festival (IIDF) at Bhanja Kala Mandap here commencing on Thursday.
The event, in its fourth edition now, is being hosted by city-based Samskritiki cultural society that has been hosting the annual Odishi international dance festival here for the past seven years.
IIDF Chairperson Sai Venkatesh from Bengaluru informed that this has
been the only festival of its kind in India that celebrates dance without divisions of classical, contemporary, folk or tribal. “The motto is to strengthen bonds among counties and cultures through dance,” he added.
After its launch in Bhubaneswar in 2015, it was hosted in Bengaluru and Hyderabad as a travelling dance festival. Meanwhile, the IIDF has become a multi-city event and it would be hosted every year in Bhubaneswar, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, New Delhi, Guwahati, Kolkata and Kerala, he informed.
The dance styles being featured in the IIDF, Bhubaneswar, this year, are Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Odishi, Manipuri, Mohiniattam and Sattriya. This four-day talent search festival is exclusively for young Indian classical dancers under 30. Those who would have impressive performances in the festival will be awarded “Future Faces” titles that would qualify them to perform in other chapters of the IIDF in India, Venkatesh explained.
Dancers and dance researchers from Argentina, Australia, China, Japan, Singapore, Thailand, Middle East and USA are joining this festival in addition to a large number of dancers from all over India.
Performances apart, the event would include seminars, screening of films and documentaries on dance, exhibition of books, journals, brochures, DVDs and photographs on dance, besides visit to cultural institutions like the Odisha State Museum, the Tribal Museum, the GKCM Odissi Research Centre, temples and heritage sites in and around Bhubaneswar, Konark and Puri, informed festival chief coordinator Swadhin Kumar.