Kalaa Utsavam in Singapore



The "Esplanade" is presenting a 10 day festival of Indian arts called "kalaa utsavam" from Nov 11-20. I was there over the weekend witnessing two spectacular performances.

On Saturday evening was "Bhukam - Circus of earth & sky" , a novel dance concept. Its a unique combination of Indian dance forms,gymnastics,yoga & martial arts. The dances performed on the sky (With the help of a rope) were daring and graceful. The lead performers were Daksha Seth and her daughter, the beautiful Isha Shravani ( Who acted as heroine in the bollywood movie Kisna , directed by subash ghai).

On Sunday was the concert "Eastern Raphsody" featuring Mandolin U. Srinivas, grammy winner Pt.Vinayakram (Ghatam) , Selvaganesh (Kanjira) & Taufiq Quershi (Drums) -- brother of Tabla maestro Zakir Hussain. For the first one hour audiences were treated to a mini concert by the percussionists. The performers were brilliant combining speed,mastery and even resorting to mimicry (to create rhytym out of body & mouth) to delight a participative audience. Srinivas made his appearance after the interval and amazed the crowd with his dexterity & fusion music. The first piece was " Mahaganapathim" ( Raagam : Naatai) and the rest of the pieces were his compositions and those of the Shakti group. I only wished the concert was a bit longer !

P.S : After the concert the four performers patiently signed autographs for the audience. When I told Srinivas that the concert was awesome , he modestly replied " Romba nandri sir...ellam aandavan aasirvatham ( Thanks a lot, all god's grace) ".

Also sighted a few indian bloggers like kaps,divya,ashwin the concert.