KUALA LUMPUR, Dec 6 (NNN-BERNAMA) – The ongoing Shantanand Arts Festival, an annual event at the Temple of Fine Arts in Brickfields here, is once again offering a myriad of arts and cultural events at its centre till this Sunday, Dec 8.
The arts festival, which took off on November 30, as in its previous years continues to celebrate the diversities of culture and arts as well talents and the creative expressions of both fine arts and the performing arts.
For this year, the festival, named after its founder the late Swami Shantanand Saraswathi, has lined up a series of events that include a dance drama, dance and musical performances as well as movie screenings and an orchestra performance “Hrdaya” or Heartstrings.
A series of workshops on various art forms including Batik Art, Cupcake making, Abstract Art and Varma Acupuncture Treatment have been also put together to give an insight and introductions to these art forms.
A major event showcased this year is also the TFA’s dance drama, PadmaPurush.
The dance drama, deploying the major classical dance forms of Bharata Natyam and Oddisi depicts the love story and union of an Orissan King Purushottam Dev and a Tamil princess Padmavathi from Kanchipuram.
The TFA is not new to dance dramas. Among its famous productions include Mashuri in 1988, legend of Lady White Snake, Asean Ramayana, Taj Mahal and Butterfly lovers.
Padma Purush lives up to the Temple of Fine Arts’ reputation for quality stage productions, known for its immaculate dancers, creative choreography, excellent narration, well-coordinated and executed classical dance movements, and most of all the passion of its teachers and students in expressing the art form with much colour, grace and devotion.
Speaking to Bernama, Dance Director Shankar Kandasamy said the dance drama which has interweaved two different classical dance forms, with Orissa from Eastern India and Bharata Natyam from South India, to tell a story is a reflection of the journey people can take towards learning and understanding each other’s culture.
“In any collaboration where the interweaving of two diverse forms of cultures is involved, we have to take the effort to know about another culture, and then find commonalities in the culture.
“Collaborative works always have a certain amount of yourself, which has to be compromised and that compromising is actually giving up your ego in a way….and it is the coming together of our broader selves and common features that have to be celebrated,” he said.
Living in a multicultural society like Malaysia, it is only natural that we do such collaborative works that celebrate diversities and see a richer fabric at the end of it, said Shankar.
Both the classical dance art forms of Bharata Natyam and Odissi were used in dance drama Padma Purush, which tells the story of King
Purushottam Dev and Princess Padmavathi who are united after overcoming obstacles.
More than 30 TFA students and teachers, comprising school students to professionals practised for months for the dance drama, said Jostna Nithyanandan, the festival director.
“The performers include school students as well as professionals like lawyers and engineers and they had practiced very hard for the show,” said Jostna, a trained musician and dancer herself.
The week-long Shantanand Festival with workshops for children in the day until December 6 and more feature events on Saturday will end with an Orchestra performance on Sunday evening December 8, named Hrdaya or Hearstrings.
Tickets for the week-long events can be purchased directly at the TFA in Brickfields or online.
–NNN-BERNAMA