Indian dance enlightens Hanoi
HANOI - The 70 minute long composition was performed in Hanoi on Tuesday by 16
dancers of the Indian Dance Art Troupe led by Doctor Ramakant Rath. It
received a thunderous applause from the audience. And the dancers felt as if
they were performing in their home state. Dr. Ramakant Rath told VOV News,
"I was a little nervous but it was beautiful dancing. It’s the first time I have
been to a foreign country, I was nervous, but I was also excited for the same
reason. Wonderful audience, they encouraged us. I thought the
communication of us with the audience is very warm. I felt very much homely,
a home far away from home. The people, the shops, everything. It was very
nice, wonderful audience, and we enjoyed dancing before them. I think it was
great"
The director of the dance, Doctor Ramakant Rath explains why the dance is
brought to Vietnam, "The performance that we are doing is about the links
between the culture of India and South East Asian countries. I believe that
there is a long association between these countries and India. There’s a lot
that in common between the two cultures, even when we arrived here, we felt
we were in India, not in a foreign country. The landscape and the people are so
similar to India. So the concept that we have for the performance is from
Ganges to Mekong. Ganges is the River in India, like the Mother Goddess."
Odissi is a classical dance which originated in the second century BC in
southeast of India, now Orissa State. It consists broadly of two divisions, nritta
and nritya. Nritta emphasizes abstract dance without literary content while
nritya is an expressive dance in which poetry and movement fuse to create
visual motifs through symbolic hand gesture and facial expressions. The
Odissi technique has been developed around two pivotal positions of the body
the square chowk represents the presiding male deity of the universe and the
tribhanga, known as thrice deflected position in which his consort, personified
female energy, is depicted.
The dance was given a big hand by Hanoians.
Voice of Vietnam - November 9, 2000.
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