SAARC nations need shared database on heritage

New Delhi, Sep 27: SAARC nations should own a shared database on the intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of South Asia so as to locate the region’s cultural components, pool them onto a platform and facilitate their exchange between people and transmission down generations, a seminar noted today.

Community participation is one key to such an initiative, but it would require an atmosphere where the youth is encouraged to carry on hereditary knowledge and skills, speakers at the workshop in the capital on ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Context of SAARC’ pointed out.

Opening Procesion_SAARC Cultural Festival
on Traditional Dances of South Asia

Organised by Colombo-based SAARC Cultural Centre (SCC) in collaboration with Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA) here as part of an ongoing SAARC Cultural Festival on Traditional Dances of South Asia which began Friday evening, the day-long deliberations which also saw demonstration of three performing arts, the delegates also called for developing arts and crafts hubs besides heritage tourism spots across South Asia.

Art scholar Dr Sudha Gopalakrishnan, while speaking on ‘Safeguarding ICH’ at SNA’s Rabindra Bhavan complex, emphasized that heritage could not be treated as a static concept, and that its documentation thus merited constant update and linkage to the contemporary world.

“While it is a difficult process to establish normative procedures for tangible heritage, it is much more complex to take action on the intangible because of its ‘living’ and intractable nature, diversity in areas of manifestation and legal ramifications,” she said at the forenoon session that was preceded by a demonstration of eastern India’s Seraikella Chhau (Shashadhar Acharya) and followed by Sri Lankan dances besides Koodiyattam presentation (Sangeeth Chakyar) from Kerala in the afternoon.

SAARC Culture Centre Director Dr Sanjay Garg revealed that the Third Meeting of SAARC Ministers of Culture held earlier this week had decided to establish a SAARC Heritage Committee. The proposed body’s tasks would be to identify monuments and cultural landscapes besides document and share knowledge.

“SAARC agenda on ICH needs to be revisited,” he added, after Dr Gopalakrishnan said the eight-nation initiative needed to give a clearer definition to ICH, identify its domains and muster online inventory besides support individual artistes and organize exchange programmes that also involved experts.

SSC Director GLW Samarasinghe and SNA Secretary Helen Acharya also spoke.

At the interactive session, veteran theatre-person M K Raina cautioned that revitalization of the arts had its flip side if their updating is done without respect for the past.

Former Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India Neville Kanakeratne revealed that Colombo and New Delhi signed an accord this week to initiate joint documentation of the Buddhist spot of Kalinga in Orissa.

The three-day festival began on Friday evening with the staging of traditional dances of SAARC nations. The two-hour programmes saw the presentation of Mili Atan and Karsak recitals from Afghanistan, bottle dance and Jhoom from Bangaldesh, welcome songs of Bhutan, Manjushree dance and Bhairav Kali dance of Nepal and Kandyan dance from Sri Lanka besides Chhau dances (Seraikella and Purulia), Dhol Cholam (Manipur) and Kathakali (Kerala), from India.

The festival will conclude on Sunday evening amid cultural programmes after awarding of certificates to the participating 105 artistes.

Traditional Dances of South Asia - Afghanistan - Karsak

Traditional Dances of South Asia - Bhutan - Welcome Song

Traditional Dances of South Asia - Bangladesh - Bottle Dance

Traditional Dances of South Asia - India_Dhol Cholam

Traditional Dances of South Asia - India_Kathakali

Traditional Dances of South Asia - India_Purulia Chhau

Traditional Dances of South Asia - India_Saraikela Chhau

Traditional Dances of South Asia - Nepal_Bhairav Kali 

Traditional Dances of South Asia - Sri Lanka_Ves

SAARC Culture Festival Photo Exhibition Draws Visitors to Akademi

New Delhi, Sep 26: The SAARC nations have renewed their cultural ties at a just-concluded conclave of their culture ministers, but their shared history of artistic cooperation dates back to five decades — as portrayed eminently in a grand spectacle that has opened in the national capital.

Photo Exhibition at SNA

The three-day photo exhibition which began at the Sangeet Natak Akademi (SNA) today essays select cultural events that the national-level institution has hosted since 1958 till recently — all of them exclusively featuring the countries of South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) that now total eight: Afghanistan, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh and the Maldives, besides India.

SNA Secretary Helen Acharya pointed out that the 1952-founded Akademi has played a proactive role with regard to performing arts. “This has been particularly so in South Asia and the SAARC countries,” she added.

The 169-image exhibition, which has been organised as part of a SAARC Cultural Festival on Traditional Dances of South Asia being staged at the Akademi this week, seeks to recall the contributions of India in unifying the cultural spirit of the eight-nation grouping.

“We have chosen recap moments from eleven occasions — from 1958 (when SNA held a dance seminar in Delhi) to a welcome function hosted in 2003 in honour of Chandrika Bhandaranaike Kumaratunga when she was the President of Sri Lanka,” Ms Acharya noted.

Thus in photos of varying sizes — their tone ranging from sepia to black-and-white to multi-colour — the ongoing exhibition boasts of visuals from a series of momentous events, interactive sessions, symposia, festivals and VIP visits the SNA has organised over the past half a century.

Innovatively designed in zigzag block-like formations, the show on SNA lawns has experimented with sequencing the chosen images. Also, besides the SNA-organised events, it serves a visual feast with descriptive notes on the art forms and traditional festivals in the SAARC region that has won UNESCO’s recognition as intangible cultural heritage.

As for the SNA photos, for instance, one section profiles three events the 

Akademi organised — in 1971, ’79 and ’84. Adjacent to it is a chapter that has images from just one event: a dance seminar in 1958.

Scenes from that symposium pop up contrasting moods in sepia. The seminars show scholars sitting in brooding rows and presenting papers. Next to it are vibrant stage shows of the pre-classical Yakshagana from Karnataka and the ritualistic Kandy dances of Sri Lanka presented as part of that 1958 event that shows Pt Jawaharlal Nehru, the then prime minister, among the delegates.

On the other hand, the adjoining section is a visual potpourri of festivals such as Bhutanese dances from the Republic Day Folk Dance Festival at Delhi’s National Stadium, dancing masks from South Asian Festival of Culture and rabab recitals at Rabindra Bhavan in ’84.

Photo Exhibition at SNA 

Further afield are images from India International Puppet Festival and The SAARC Workshop on Documentation of Musical Tradition (both in ’90), SAARC South Asian Music and Dance Festival (’98) and the 1991 images of Sri then Lankan President Kumaratunga being welcomed (flanked by late minister Arjun Singh and lyricist Bhupen Hazarika) and her taking a peek at a set of mask dance mannequins.

The images of UNESCO-recognised art forms at the show are of ancient Sanskrit theatre Koodiyattam, Vedic chanting of Kerala, Ram Lila of upcountry India, Novruz of the South and West Asian belt, Ramman religious festival of Garhwal Himalayas, Chhau dance of eastern India, Kalbelia folk songs of Rajasthan, Mudiyettu traditional theatre of Kerala and Buddhist chanting of Ladakh and Jammu & Kashmir, besides Sankirtana from Manipur.

Six-dance show unveils pan-Indian aesthetics at SAARC Culture Ministers Meet

New Delhi, Sep 25: In a little over half-an-hour, the visual treat encapsulated the rich variety of India’s performance arts in its entirety.

Dances, drama and melodies from the north, east, west and south of the host nation dazzled delegates at the Third Meeting of SAARC Ministers of Culture, as the 40-minute show highlighted the individuality and commonalities of classical, folk and martial traditions of the country.

Six traditional Indian dances come together at
Nrityarupa programme staged as part of the 3rd SAARC Cultural Ministers' Meeting,
 at The Ashok, yesterday evening (1)

Presented under the aegis of Sangeet Natak Akademi which also crafted the programme, ‘Nrityarupa’ brought out the essential charm and collaborative beauty of Bharatanatyam, Kathakali (both from the south), Kathak (north and west), Odissi and Chhau (east) and Manipuri (Northeast) before an august audience featuring ministers and diplomats among other dignitaries.

Addressing the gathering at The Ashoka hotel on Wednesday evening, India’s Minister of State for Culture Shripad Yesso Naik noted that the two-day conclave was striving to lay a time-bound roadmap that would work substantively to revitalize cultural institutions and re-inject enthusiasm among artists, writers and scholars who work in the areas of the dance, literature, museum, archives, libraries, oral narratives and modern art.

कैप्शन जोड़ें

“Towards this end, India is willing to commit its time, manpower and resources for strengthening institutions in the region so that we can preserve our rich cultural heritages and particularly preserve the hundreds of thousands of mini-narratives which are in danger of being lost forever to future generations,” he noted at the banquet speech, hours after officials of eight-nation conglomeration held talks on taking forward cultural cooperation.

‘Nrityarupa’, choreographed by frontline Kathak exponent Rajendra Gangani, wove a tapestry of celebrated Indian dances, thus demonstrating a kinetic synergy between them. As their seamless portrayal eventually led to a jubilant flourish, the spectators gave the artistes a cheerful ovation.

Light-designed by Sreekanth Nair, the package unrolled gracefully with a piece invoking Lord Shiva. The hymnal offering symbolised the cosmic cycle of creation and destruction, as the Shiva Stuti drew in artistes in pairs representing the six dances.

Subsequently, they also found individual demonstration before finally the dancers performedtogether to a uniform rhythm. That climactic tarana melody merged the streams into a pure-dance passage, symbolising the essential Indian spirit of union despite its cultural differences regionally.

The artistes were Arun Sankar, Rajamally B (Bharatanatyam), Gauri Diwakar (Kathak), Nikhil Lal (Chhau), Shagun Butani, Asha Kumari (Odissi), Chandan Devi, Meneka Devi (Manipuri) and M Amaljith (Kathakali).

Bharatanatyam recital enthrals SAARC delegates ahead of meet

New Delhi, Sep 24: The Third Meeting of SAARC Ministers of Culture which began here today got a slice of India’s rich culture on the eve of the two-day international meet when leaders and delegates were treated to a Bharatanatyam recital from the south of the country.

Five young artistes from Chennai’s Kalakshetra showcased the vivacity and variety of the classical dance before an audience that comprised ministers, top bureaucrats and their families from the eight member-nations of the 1985-founded South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation, or SAARC.

The 50-minute show, which was organised by Sangeet Natak Akademi on Tuesday evening, was strung together by frontline dancer Priyadarshini Govind who is currently the director of the 1936-established institution.

Artistes from Chennai-based Kalakshetra Repertory Company
 perform Bharatanatyam in New Delhi on Sep 23 Tuesday on the eve of the
 Third SAARC Culture Ministers Conference in the national capital.

As the dancers — three of them males — presented four celebrated items to recorded music at The Ashok hotel in the capital, the SAARC delegates from Sri Lanka, Nepal, Bangladesh, Pakistan, Afghanistan, Bhutan and the Maldives besides host India watched in relaxed attention. The end of the performance saw them applaud the artistes with long rounds of claps, much to the pleasure of Priyadarshini and the Kalakshetra Repertory Company artistes Hari Padman, Sibi Sudarsan, K P Rakesh, Indu Mohan and K Sharada Acharya.

Culture Secretary Ravindra Singh said before the start of the show that India was seeking to strengthen cultural ties with the rest of the SAARC nations. “We share centuries of history,” he noted, adding that the deep bond manifests in matters ranging from food, art and literature.

Culture Secretary Ravindra Singh and Joint Secretary V Srinivas on stage, flanking Kalakshetra director Priyadarshini Govind, after a Bharatanatyam show by the Chennai-based institution's repertory company's five dancers on Sep 23 Tuesday on the eve of the Third SAARC Culture Ministers Conference in the national capital.

The dance recital, according to Priyadarshini, eminently mirrored the insight and spirit of Bharatanatyam gurus, including legendary theosophist Rukmini Devi Arundale who founded Kalakshetra in 1936.

Mr Singh presented Priyadarshini and the stage artistes with shawls.

The dance programme began with the invocatory Allarippu in raga Nattai, followed by a Jatiswaram in Kalyani and set to the three-beat roopaka taal. Then came the main piece, a Keertana on Nataraja (set to Kedaragoula raga and choreographed by the couple V P Dhananjayan and Shanta). The recital concluded with a Tillana composed by 20th-century musician Papanasam Sivan in raga Hindolam.