Naureen Mehra, a dynamic and promising disciple of Dr(s) Raja, Radha and Kaushalya Reddy will be having her 'Rangapravesham' on November 21 at Kamani Auditorium.
In the event tilted 'Rangapravesham: A solo Kuchipudi dance recital', she will enthrall the audience with her graceful and intricate dance moves during her first solo performance.
The evening will start with an invocation of Lord Venkateshwara in the form of 'Shree Venkateshwara Stothram'. This will be followed by 'Dashavtara' – a dance item which depicts the ten different avatars of Vishnu, the god of preservation.
The evening will preceed with 'Tarana', a Hindustani musical item, and a composition of the sitar maestro Bharat Ratna Pandit Ravi Shankar. Raja and Radha Reddy have choreographed this item in Kuchipudi classical dance style. The dancer is depicted as a sculpture that comes to life and dances merrily at the temple's celebration and in the end, feeling sad again freezes back into sculpture.
The dancer's 'abhinaya' skills will come to the fore in her performance on the popular sufi song 'Chaap Tilak' – a poem composed by Amir Khusro, a 14th century Sufi mystic.
Coming towards the end, the dancer will give a vibrant performnce of 'Tarangam', one of the most popular items from the Kuchipudi repertoire. In this performance, she will showcase her rhythmic footwork patterns by dancing on the rim of a brass plate, depicting famous stories from Lord Krishna's childhood.
Naureen has been training under her world renowned gurus since the tender age of seven years. The contributions of the legendary Kuchipudi dancing couple Padmabhushan Dr Raja Radha Reddy and Dr Kaushalya Reddy to the rich and vibrant cultural landscape of Delhi are immense. They are credited with training hundreds of students under their watchful eyes, so that they carry forward the rich heritage of Kuchipudi and one such student is Naureen Mehra.