Few places in the State get to see as much dance or listen to as much music as the capital. Over the next one week, there is much to look forward to for the city’s art lovers. The 56th State School Arts Festival, a celebration of arts like no other, begins on Tuesday. Then on Wednesday, the Nishagandhi Festival, which features some of the country’s biggest names in dance and music, will get under way.
The highlights of the Nishagandhi Festival include Anoushka Shankar’s classical concert, an instrumental jugalbandi featuring Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain and flautists Shashank Subramanyam and Rakesh Chourasia, dance ballet by actor Hema Malini, Kuchipudi by the mother-daughter duo of Vijayanthi Kashi and Prateeksha Kashi, Carnatic concert by T.V. Sankaranarayanan, a Carnatic-Hindustani jugalbandi by playback singers Gayatri and Sreeranjini Kodampally, and Odissi by Ileana Citaristi.
Tomorrow’s stars
They are all stars of today. If you want to watch the stars of tomorrow, all you need to do is to visit one of the 19 venues of the school festival.
Once again, classical dances such as Bharatanatyam, Mohiniyattam and Kuchipudi would be the key attractions. Group Dance, Drama, Mono-Act and Mimicry too have been traditional crowd-pullers. But, if you want to enjoy some newly introduced art forms, you should try Folk Songs. Another new entry, Ghazals, too has picked up in popularity pretty fast. If you are a lover of poetry, do not miss Kavyakeli and Aksharaslokam.
