In the midst of a sunny afternoon, the much awaited dance workshop by ace celebrity dancer Shakti Mohan took place at Day 1 of Ullas, which refreshed the fest comers despite the wave of heat. Performing as a part of MTV driven Nescafe’ Labs-Dance Challenge, the event saw a selected bunch of students from various colleges, who attended the workshop mentored by Shakti for the Web dance series she is currently mentoring.
Explaining the history of Contemporary dance form, the Dance-India-Dance fame Shakti, shared with the students as to how the Contemporary dance is a more recent phenomenon. She emphasised on the fact that, to understand contemporary dance, it is important to look at its origins which span to the later part of the 20th Century and early half of the 21st Century.
On being asked what message she would want to convey to the students who wish to pursue dance as a career, she remarked, “One should be very patient to adopt dance as a career prospect. It takes a lot of time to succeed and if one really wants to adopt it as a career, hard work and patience is a must!.”
An enthusiastic student, Pulkit Sharma from Dyal Singh College, shared with us his experience of the workshop. “I am a hip-hop dancer, but learning contemporary from such a well known celebrity like Shakti was a great experience.”
Nrityakriti is an annual dance event organized by Adagio, the Choreography society of Kamala Nehru College. This time the event was a solo choreography competition which saw a total of 16 participations. The event was judged by Mr. Anurag, the founder of Boys of street, Mr. Benjamin Jacob, senior member of Dance Works Academy and ms. Rekha Rawat, founder and instructor at India Dance Theatre.
Vipin from IGNOU bagged the first position while Shivam from Aryabhatta College came second and Sandeep from Sri Venkateswara College was declared third.
Post Nrityakriti was hosted ‘Ol That Jazz’, the Western Dance Competition which was judged by Mr. Vikram Sharma, instructor at Dance Works Academy and Mr. Himanshu Sharma, a Hip-Hop artist.
V-Defyn of IIT-Delhi was declared the winner of the event, followed by Misba of Shri Guru Gobind Singh College of Commerce and Afroza of Indraprastha College for Women were declared second and third respectively.
Soon after this event, the crowd flocked towards the main ground where the band Astitva had already taken over the stage. They enthralled the audience with popular numbers like ‘Aa Raat Bhar’, ‘Gulaabo’, ‘Om Shanti Om’ and ‘Sooraj Dooba Hai’. They also performed, for the first time ever, their original composition ‘Dil Banjara’. Astitva wound up the evening with a power-packed performance of ‘Main Prem Pyaala Pi Aaya’.
Ullas 2016 is scheduled to host Sona Mohapatra on day 2.
Arushi Pathak
Riya Chibber
Nishita Agarwal
Tooba Towfiq
Images by Sahil Chauhan, Paurush Bhardwaj and Jasmine Chahal for DU Beat.
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