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Date:
June 16, 2001
Time: 3:45 to
6:30 pm
(Saturday)
Venue: Memorial United Methodist Church
Location: 250 Bryant
Avenue, White Plains, NY 10605.
Items: Vocal,
Kathak, Sitar and Tabla
Admission and Parking:
FREE
IMAGES of this
Concert
ASAVARI, a school of Indian Classical Dance and Music located in White Plains, NY celebrated its Third Annual Concert on Saturday June 16, '01 from 3:45 to 6 pm at the above location. The concert presented Kathak Dance and Hindusthani Music by Gargi Bagchi, the teacher and choreographer, and her students. The concert started with the Hindustani classical vocal presentation by Gargi and her students students with Ravi Rao in Sitar and Tapan Modak in Tabla. Gargi has taken training in Hindustani ragas from many teachers in Calcutta. She also has a fair knowledge of songs written by the Nobel laureate Ravindra Nath Tagore and the rebel poet of India and Bangladesh, Kazi Nazrul Islam. Later, she also studied under the tutelage of vocal maestro Pandit Ajoy Chakravarty . The students gave an outstanding performance in singing the songs based on classical ragas example Bhajans, Slokas, Bandishes and Taranas.
Kathak is a north Indian classical dance style, which is unique for its Footwork and Circles. It is unique in blending influences from Hindu and Muslim culture, which shows in the costumes, dance gestures, and the accompanying music. Kathak in both Hindu and Muslim themes was presented by Gargi and her students in a wide variety : from classical to classical based to present day compositions example - Bhajans, Vandana, Thumri, Bhav-Parangaha, Ghazal, Qawali, Tarana, etc. Asavari teaches Kathak in Lucknow style. Gargi has been a student of Asavari, located at Calcutta for ten years. She has taken workshops from the renowned Kathak guru Pandit Birju Maharaj . She was the choreographer of all the dances that was presented on that evening. Asavari students started with the Hindu theme followed by the Muslim theme during the second half of the show. The Hindu theme included devotional songs: Slokas, Bhajans, Vandana, Thumri and all songs were based on classical ragas with Tukdas, Parans, Laris embeded in it. The students performed to their best ability and according to the level of their interests and experience.
One of the great attractions was the songs of Ravindra Nath Tagore sung by an artist of Calcutta Srimati Archana Bagchi and her students with Ravi Rao in Sitar and Tapan Modak in Tabla. There were dances with the Tagore songs performed by the artists Soma Mandal and Debarati Basu A recital of Tabla (Indian percussion instrument) by Shri Tapan Modak and his students followed. Tapan, the disciple of Pandit Kishen Maharaj, runs a school named under his guru as 'Pandit Kishen Maharaj Taal Taranga Institute.' Following this was a Sitar by Dr. Ravi Rao accompanied by Tapan Modak in Tabla.
The second half of the program was devoted to the Muslim theme of Kathak presented by Gargi and her students. They presented dances with Ghazals, Qawali (in Kathak style) and Taranas. The last item was two dances with film songs 'Mehndi Hai Rachne –wali' from Zubeida and 'Bhumbro Bhumbro' from Mission Kashmir. They were choreographed in Kathak with folk style blended with it.
There were no tickets and donations. All expenses were borne by Gargi and her husband Dr. Sugato Bagchi and by some of the local Indians and Americans who offered generous help in every respect e.g. auditorium, sound system, lights etc. The most striking thing is that all the guest artists performed for free just to help Asavari. There were fair number of people in the audience and they all enjoyed the show.
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