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AV Today
May '02

Auroville is dancing !

On March 30th 2002, we had an abundant Dance Celebration festival in Auroville. The Auditorium was packed with close to 1,000 people, from Auroville, Pondy and surrounding villages. Many Tamilians attended as there were groups of Tamil dancers, and not to forget the Tamil kiddies of the various schools.

The festival, lasting one long Saturday evening, featured all the various AV dance groups with participants from the ages of 6 to over 60. Styles of dance performed were Indian classical forms Odissi & Bharatnatyam along with ballet, modern jazz, hip-hop, afro funk, free style improvisation, Flamenco, contemporary and hi-lo aerobics. Including the teachers, there were 102 people participating which made the event one of the most interesting Auroville cultural celebrations of the year.

The arts of physical culture

The purpose of the event was to encourage the arts of physical culture in Auroville and to share the work being done in the ongoing classes as well as help to fund our performing artists and body awareness programmes.

Kids and adults

The children were first and offered a lovely 50 minutes programme with 12 different dances. The teenagers did a spirited hip-hop dance to a song called 'The Power of Love' by Deelight, and in general it can be said that while expectations had run very high, the performances were beyond it.
The adults were slotted for 1 hour and 15 minutes of 8 different dances, and finally all dancers performed a 'goodbye' dance. It was great!

Joint venture

The main organiser, team player and inspiration of most of the choreography was Grace (ballet, jazz ballet, hip-hop, afro-funk) who was backed up by the other teachers who are Srimoyi (Odissi), Prabha (Bharatnatyam & folkdance), Murugesan and Usha (contemporary Indian), Flamenco (Elvira), Bobby (aerobics), Aurelio (modern), Jutta & Veronique (improvisation) and BlancheFleur (solo performance, Bharatnatyam).

We all enjoyed a very beautiful evening where everyone was welcome.