Filmmaker Sharada Ramanathan’s Tamil movie Sringaram was screened on Sunday to kick off the 45th International Film Festival of India’s special dance section ‘Celebrating Dance in Indian Cinema’. The film had won the National Award for best choreography.
The exclusive section featured a wide spectrum, ranging from choreographers such as Sadhona Bose and Uday Shankar to classical exponents like Gopi Krishna and Birju Maharaj and modern artistes like Shiamak Davar and Vaibhavi Merchant.
Festival Director Shankar Mohan said this section aimed to highlight different dance traditions and styles ranging from the classical forms like Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi ( Thillaanaa Mohanambal , Hamsa Geete , Sagar Sangamam , Sringaram ), Kathakali ( Vanaprastham ), and Kathak ( Jhanak Jhanak Payal Baje , Umrao Jaan , “Kahe Ched Mohe” from Devdas ) to more contemporary hybrid forms influenced by modern western forms such as jazz, ballet, Hawaiian dance, and acrobatic forms ( Alibaba , Albela , Dil to Pagal Hai , Rab ne Bana di Jodi ) among others.
The section also pays tribute to dancers of Indian cinemas — Sadhana Bose, Uday Shankar, Padmini, Sandhya, Vyjayanthimala, Hema Malini, Shobhana, Madhuri Dixit, Sudha Chandran and Kamal Haasan, among others.
It also includes mainstream film like Dhoom 3 , which is not a dance film in the conventional sense but one that demonstrates powerfully the central place of dance in Indian cinemas.
