Sopan festival concludes with alluring performances

SOPAN, a festival of Young Musicians and Dancers was organised by Sahitya Kala Parishad along with Delhi Government. Spread over 6 days, the festival was opened on December 13 and showcased 24 scholarship holders of Sahitya Kala Parishad who have pursued it to further polish their skills in the traditional art forms.

"SOPAN was a great success and I thank all the performers of this festival. It is a matter of pride and celebration when today's young talents come together and invest their time and energy to promote our traditional Indian art forms like dance, music and instruments. We are proud of these young upcoming stars and are glad that Sahitya Kala Parishad is setting platforms like Sopan to provide them with an audience base," said Deputy CM Manish Sisodia.

The festival's inaugural performance was by G Raghavendra Prasad who presented a melodious Violin ensemble with Bantureeti Kolu in Raag Hamsanadam followed by Brindavane Venu- Bhimplasi, laong with other performances by him.

This was followed by a Kathak ensemble by Dr Garima Arya Chaturlal who started with an invocation to Lord Shiva Stuti.

The second piece was Teental Vilambit and Madhya laya followed by a Thumri. Later, she performed Teental drut laya and ended it with a Jugalbandi.

The evening then esclated with different performances by different artistes.

On the second day, Riya Banerjee started her vocal performance with Raag Yaman Kalyan, in Vilambit Jhaptal followed by a Drut Khayal in Teentaal in the same Raag.

The second performance of the evening was by Bhanu Sisodia presenting Pakhawaj.

The last performance of the evening was by Siddhi Goel who started her recital with an old poem of the Lucknow Gharana, in which Radha is described as the 'nayika' of Teentaal. Following this were technical pieces in Taal Teentaal. She concluded her recital with the immersive 'Dadra' of Lucknow Gharana.

The following days also witnessed some interesting line ups.

On the last day, Pavithra Chari started the evening with her Vilambit and drut khayal and a nirgun bhajan. Follwed by Roman Das with his Pakhawaj, Tanya Saxena Lakshmi Vandana, and Avinav Mukherjee, who concluded the evening with his Kathak ensemble. His first piece was Shiva Vandana, an invocation to Lord Shiva, followed by a technical dance Taal Dhamaar, a pure nritta aspect of Kathak. His last piece was Krishna Leela describing various facets of Lord Krishna and also narrates the episodes of Kans vadh and Kaalia Daman.