ST. LOUIS (KMOX) - Clayton High School Auditorium will be the center of a showcase of traditional Indian classical dance performances as the 15th American Natya Festival will take place this weekend.
The three-day festival from April 27-29 presents professional performing artists from different parts of the United States and India, featuring beautiful Indian classical dance forms such as Bharatanatyam, Kathak, Kuchipudi, Andhra Natyam, and many more.
"The festival started in 2008, on a small scale, just with local St. Louis dancers and surrounding cities," said Prasanna Kasthuri of Soorya Performing Arts on Total Information A.M. Thursday. "Now it has grown nicely with the help of the Missouri Arts Council and Regional Arts Commission of St. Louis."
The festival will feature many local St. Louis dancers, along with one from Chicago. It will also feature two dance specialists that are traveling over 7,000 miles from India who will give scholarly demonstrations at the festival.
"A few people from India are coming to present their dances and one of them is a scholar who has researched quite a bit in Indian dancing," said Prasnna. "Not only just solo dancing which is the main flow of Indian Classical Dances, but from soloing to a group production called dance dramas, who have a story to tell with multiple characters and lots people on the stage."
A big highlight of the festival will be Natya Idol, an Indian Dance competition that began seven years ago that will feature many high school-aged people and dance groups from not just St. Louis, but across the country, competing.
"During the first year we thought we can (expand the competition) outside St. Louis and we successfully did to six cities and got really good responses," said Prassana. "Those who got selected second and third will all fly into St. Louis now and St. Louis is becoming a good hub that are coming inside to have this competition."
Seema Kasthuri, Prassnna's wife who is also involved, says the festival is good way for the Indian-Americans kids to stay in touch with their culture.
"What we have seen in these six different cities is these youngsters who are extremely interested and love to preform these art forms," said Seema. "They have practicing for 15-20 years and what we are doing here is actually a great opportunity to connect the bridge."
For more information about the festival, you can click here and for tickets to attend any of the three days, you can click here .
Most Popular
Comments / 0