Only four out of the 84 colleges in Dakshina Kannada turned up for the district leg of the selection of Mangalore University’s folk dance team that will take part in the Yuva Dasara at Mysore. The University is conducting a similar selection event in Udupi and Kodagu. Mangalore University had planned to select two teams each from Dakshina Kannada, Udupi and Kodagu districts.
From the six teams, the University will be selecting one team that will head to Mysore. “Seven colleges had intimated us about their participation,” said Nagappa Gowda, University College lecturer and coordinator of the event.
The Dakshina Kannada selections were held at the Mangalore University College’s Ravindra Kalabhavan. Apart from the host Mangalore University College, teams from Sahyadri College Adyar, Niranjanaswamy First Grade College Sunkadakatte and Dhavala College Moodbidri took part in the competition.
The first to come on stage was the team from Sahyadri College, who presented the Kamsale folk dance.
The next was Niranjanaswamy First Grade College team that presented the local ‘Kanyapundalike’ folk dance set to a Tulu song. The team from Dhavala College faced hiccups while presenting the ‘Pooja Kunita’, where one team member dances holding a heavy lampshade-like object on the head. The students took more than three minutes to set the stage. They began with co-dancers presenting the first sequence of the dance done by tying wood pieces to their legs. The dancer in the middle who held the heavy lampshade maintained composure throughout the presentation while dancing.
It was at the end of their presentation that the dancer lost balance and fell off the stage.
It took a while for that dancer to recover. “They practiced this only since Monday afternoon,” said Dhavala College dance teacher Gurucharan Pullipu.
The programme ended with performance by the host University College team. The students first presented a Tulu Folk dance and followed it by Rajasthani, Punjabi, Lavani and a Bihari folk dance sequences in their allotted six minutes time.
