BCR NEWS (Mumbai): One of the leading cultural organisations of Mumbai, Sam Ved Society of Performing Arts, organized the 25th Raindrops festival featuring varied classical styles of Indian dances, namely Bharatnatyam, Mohinattam, Odissi, Kathak & Manipuri. This 3 days long dance festival that promotes varied Indian traditional dances was held at Ravindra Natya Mandir and celebrated its silver jubilee. It was exciting to watch different styles of dances on the same platform over the weekend and some dances were even performed by amazing young artists. It is really a daring initiative to organise shows year after year during the mumbai monsoons, the entire credit of this goes to renowned Kathak exponent Smt Uma Dogra, who heads the Sam Ved Society.
The event began with lamp lighting ceremony followed by the row of accomplished dancers who performed at the festival. Over the period of 3 days Kathak was performed by Rina Mehta, Vishal Krishna and Anuj Mishra. Namrata Gupta and Rajashri Praharaj danced Odissi, where as Suhani Dhanki and Mrinalini Biswas danced the bharatnatyum. There was also Radhika Nair dancing Mohiniattam and Shreya Ayyub dancing Manipuri.
Amongst all the classical dancers like Kanak Rele, Nilima Azim, Jhelum Paranjape, Darshana Jhaveri, we could only stop but notice Bollywood renowned Ballroom and Latin dancer guru Sandip Soparrkar. His presence showed that dance is universal and Uma Dogra’s initiative of the raindrop festival was well received.
Sandip Soparrkar on his Facebook post thanked Uma Dogra for inviting him and said “Very few people in this world are like Uma ji who give platform to young dancers and do not differentiate between a western dancer and an Indian dancer.”
The name Raindrops, justifying the herald of dance and music festivals in Mumbai with the onset of monsoon. The rains did not stop Mumbaikars and dance lovers from making their way to the theatre which was packed each day. It was indeed very heartening to see the excitement and the crowd at the dance festival. Overwhelmed Uma Dogra said, ” it was rainy outside but raindrop festival had dance lovers and students sitting all over the place even on the steps and on the ground. I am thankful to one and all making silver jubilee of the festival so successful.”
