Ved Institute of Performing Arts 4^th Annual Event

Ved Institute of Performing Arts (VIPA) presented its 4^th Annual Show on 21^st Sep, 2014 at Ravindra Natya Mandir. It was an attempt to showcase the talent of the students at Ved Institute and to provide them a platform to perform in public events, Months of practice and hard work invested by the students culminated into this evening filled with music, dance, stories and lively performances. The theme of this year’s annual show was “Katha Kathak ki – the Journey of Kathak”, wherein VIPA took the audience through the passage of time, explaining the evolution of kathak from its origin to its current form. The institute was honoured to have 2 very eminent Kathak guru’s  – Guru Chetan Venilal Saraiya ji and Guru Paullomi Mukherji ji as our guests of honor. Very accomplished artists themselves, both the Gurujis have been very actively involved in spreading the knowledge of kathak through the medium of performances, teaching and authoring books on Kathak.

The show began with salutations to Lord Shiva, the creator of dance, and Goddess Saraswati, the Goddess of knowledge and music. It then moved to the various performances which were centered around the theme of journey of kathak - starting with Krishna Geet, depicting the early influence of Lord Krishna in Kathak stories to the “Chaado Chaado” thumri, symbolic of the popularity of the Radha-Krishna legend in the Vasihnavite era and finally to the Rashtra Geet performance, a tribute to the survival of Kathak through the colonial era. In addition to including performances on kathak the show was also sprinkled with non kathak elements like dandia and holi folk song which added to the vibrancy of the show.  The show reached its climax with a brilliant technical piece - the Kathak repertoire in teen taal – where the students put up a dazzling presentation on the various technical aspects of Kathak including tihai, todas, parans, gat and thumri, which are taught to them through the year. Many of the presentations were performed on live music, played beautifully by our musicians on table (Shri Arvind Sukhtankar ji), harmonium (Smt. Deepika Pramod ji) and bansuri (Shri Prafulla Prabhakar Gosaviji).

The performances were followed by certificate distribution to all the students across branches for their achievements in Ved Institute’s yearly exams. The outstanding students from each year were awarded separately as well and the student of the year trophy was awarded to Vaishnavi Navrekar, a third year student from the Prabhadevi branch for securing the first rank amongst all the students.

The show was well attended and highly appreciated by the audience. While the students still have a long way to attaining perfection in kathak, with every passing year VIPA endeavors to achieve greater standards of public performance and stage presentation to enthrall its audience. Enthused by the success of this year’s show the institute will aim to return next year with an even more scintillating event