Sridevi Nrithyalaya’s 5-day dance festival to take off on Jan 26

CHENNAI: Sridevi Nrithyalaya is organising its 14th edition of Satyam-Sivam-Sundaram, a five-day annual dance festival featuring classical dancers from all over the globe, on January 26 at Arulmigu Sri Kapaleeswarar Temple.

Speaking to DT Next about the event, Dr Sheela Unnikrishnan, founder and director of Sridevi Nrthiyalaya says, “After my Kuchipudi dance guru, Dr Vempati Chinna Satyam, passed away my father wanted to honour his memory and also wanted to show his gratitude to my Bharatanatyam guru, M Sundaram. He wanted to honour them by having a dance festival in their names and wanted it to take place in Kapaleeswarar Temple and we’ve been doing so since.”

She says seeing the popularity of this festival people from all over India apply to be a part of it. The applications are processed by a committee in the dance school. After scrutinising the applications, they select them. “We also attend several performances in the city. We particularly attend performances by young artistes to support their talent and nurture them if they require it. We are always on the lookout for young talent,” she says.

Sheela Unnikrishnan

The five-day event will see a variety of performances by Shobha Korambil and Bhairavi Venkatesan; a jugalbandhi done by a mother-daughter duo, A Lakshamanaswamy, Vedya Spurthi, Kapila Venu, Manasvini Sharma, Neena Prasad, Divya Ravi, Sheejith Krishna, Manasvini Ramachandran, and a special dance drama, Sivamayam, will be presented by the students of Sridevi Nrithyalaya.

Classical arts like Kuchipudi, Bharatanatyam, Koodiyattam, Kathak, and Mohiniyattam will be performed by the artistes.

Talking about Sivamayam, she says, “We are going to present the five elements through the performance. Initially, we had 65 dancers and we faced a lot of technical difficulties and so now, we have 45 dancers as a part of the production.”

“For the first time in 14 years, we are having a Koodiyattam performer in our festival and after the pandemic, we will be performing in the temple only now. So, I’m really looking forward to it,” she adds.