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Vahuvachan
Utterances and their Interpretations
Performers
There are songs written by poets, saints and artists based on thought provoking phrases found in epics, shastras and other ancient literary works. These songs inspire dancers to expand and interpret the ideas to create dances. These dances are timeless, and hold the audience and dancers together. Sharmila Biswas brings four such dances to the audience of Bangalore.
Vilasini: Reminiscence of an old temple dancer of Puri.
Kundalika: Designing spirals in space and in body.
Maya-Manav: Man’s eternal quest for the unattainable.
Evoking Radha: A fantasy world, which every woman longs for, while living her mundane life.
The special treatment given to each makes these four dances interesting. The high spirited and humorous old Devdasi describing her fineries, a dancer connecting the inner spirals with the outer, exploration of traditional theatre styles of Odisha, combining Vachik Abhinaya with dance, are some of the highlights of Vahuvachan.
Supported by:
Performers
Sharmila Biswas
Sharmila Biswas is one of the leading dancers and choreographers in the field of Indian Classical Dance. She is known for her contribution in the development and promotion of Odissi dance and Music in the past three decades.One of the prominent students of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, she has participated as the lead dancer in a number of her Guru’s dance productions, and toured in India and abroad.
Sharmila Biswas is the Artistic Director of Odissi Vision & Movement Centre, one of the prime Cultural Institutions of India. Tracing the many facets of traditional performing arts of Odisha, and in that context viewing Odissi dance and its intrinsic links with its roots have been the foundation of most of the productions of her institution. Both her solo and group works have received critical acclaim. She is also the Dance Director of late Rituparno Ghosh’s award winning film Chitrangada.
Graded as an ‘Outstanding’ artist by The Indian Council of Cultural Relations, Ministry of External Affairs, Govt. Of India and ‘Top’ artists by Doordarshan, India, she is also the author of a textbook in Odissi dance titled, Knowing Odissi. Her biographical book Offstage with Sharmila Biswas has been published by the National Indo Canadian Council, Canada.
She received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for her contribution to Odissi Dance.
Krishnenedu Saha
Krishnenedu Saha is an Odissi dancer and a senior disciple of Sangeet Natak Academy awardee guru Sharmila Biswas. He is a graded artist of Prasar Bharti Doordarshan Kendra, Delhi & recipient of Nalanda Nritya Nipuna Award. He has participated more than 100 dance festivals across India.
He has performed twice for Prime Minister Narendra Modi and once for the Sadhguru at Isha Foundation.
He performs as lead dancer in some of his guru Sharmila Biswas’ productions. He runs his own dance institute in Udaipur called Nrityormi School of Odissi. Krishnendu also trains regularly in mime, martial dance and storytelling.
Monami Nandi
Monami Nandy is a senior disciple of guru Sharmila Biswas, having gleaned from her a warm and unabashed style of Odissi. As a senior repertory member of guru Biswas’ Odissi Vision Movement Centre (Kolkata), Monami has danced at major festivals across India and internationally.
In addition to Odissi, Monami is versed in several folk dances of Odisha. She also has a keen interest in the Indian martial art forms of Mayurbhanj Chhou (Odisha), Kalaripayattu (Kerala) and Thang-Ta (Manipur). She has honed her abhinaya (dramatic) skills at the Navarasa Sadhana acting course by guru G. Venu (Kerala), and has attended Kutiyattam (ancient theatre form of Kerala) workshops by Amannur Rajaneesh Chakyar, She has also attended body-based movements workshops by Maya Krishana Rao (Delhi), Preethi Athreya (Chennai), Prashant More (Goa) as well as traditional Javanese elements and spiritual dance by Rianto Lanang. Monami uses this knowledge bank of movement methodologies to also inform her practice as a dance movement therapist, mining the potential of dance as a tool for collective well-being by contributing her skills to NGOs in support of LGBTQ+, domestic violence, and mental health issues.
Monami is currently exploring the formal language of stylised gestures to find a personal mode of expression for some of the anxieties arising from our contemporary times. Her own works, including the dance-theatre productions UNTIL THE FLIGHT (2017) and Songs of Our Sisters (2023), have highlighted the acute, confounding nature of our shared humanity
