Dance Awareness
Dance is not just about movement, it is about uniting thought, breath, emotion, and body in a whole. In a world where artificial binaries of body and mind, emotion and reason, and thought and deed exist, dance provides the vocabulary and path to reconceive the relationship we have with ourselves, our communities, and the earth at large.
Nrityagyān, our initiative to spread awareness about dance was started in the mid-nineties, and strives for as many people as possible to access the healing possibilities that dance offers.
Through Nrityagyān we:
- Conduct sensitisation and knowledge building programmes for people so that the audience base for the classical arts is expanded.
- Open the world of classical dance to the young through lecture-demonstrations in schools, universities, and community associations.
- Research the use of classical dance in education, therapy and rehabilitation
Over the last three decades, over 500,000 children and adults have benefitted from our Project Nrityagyān through a range of activities that include workshops and lecture-demonstrations.
In the next phase of development, we plan to set-up a Resource Centre for scholars to document and research Indian classical dance, and to publish the work done at Nrityagram over the last three decades.
Informance
INFORMAL | INFORMATIVE | PERFORMANCE
A specially crafted Lec-Dem Performance, the Informance provides the audience a window into the daily life and practice at Nrityagram. The intimate studio setting is an added bonus. Informances are scheduled on some Saturdays and include a guided tour of our campus and a Q&A with our artistes.
Ajji Kathegalu
Tales my grandmother told me
“Once upon a time...” These are magic words, for they make a promise of a scintillating tale to come. We all become children when we hear these words, sitting around an elder with evening lamps casting flickering shadows that mirror all the fleeting emotions we experience - fear, worry, joy, and of course the fun of listening to stories.
Ajji Kathegalu, is Nrityagram opening a portal for us to enter our childhood again, an invitation to listen to tales from here and there, and laugh and once again experience the wondrous possibilities stories spark within us.
1st Sunday of the month, 12pm at Nrityagram.
All are welcome.
Vasantahabba
The Spring Festival
Vasantahabba, Nrityagram’s annual spring festival, was envisioned to take India’s classical heritage back to its roots by bringing the greatest performers to rural Karnataka.
Vasantahabba was an all-night festival that hosted great masters of Indian dance and music. People arrived at noon for an event that started at 6pm. They came with family; they came with friends. They came from all over India; they even came from abroad. City dwellers came; so did the villagers. They knew everything about Indian culture; they knew nothing about Indian culture. Whoever they were, they did not leave before dawn. It truly was the Woodstock of India.
During the course of 15 Vasantahabba celebrations, over 200 performers have presented to more than 400,000 people live and thousands more around the world via live-streaming and telecast. Vasantahabba Performers through the years.
Nrityagram has also proudly showcased over 5000 children from the village outreach programme. For many of the children, performing at Vasantahabba, on the same stage as the great maestros was an incredibly powerful experience.
Vasantahabba was discontinued in 2005 and we hope to launch it in a new avatar some day.
