Two day’s festival celebrated by Vaishali Kala Kendra in memory of Guru Shrinath Raut for more than three-decade organised “Guru Pranam Utsav”

Carrying forward the teachings of great Guru Shrinath Raut ji, Vaishali Kala Kendra, for more than two decade organizes “Guru Pranam Utsav” in the memory and honor of late Guru Shrinath Raut who dedicated his life proliferating the importance of Odissi as a cultural dance form.

Vaishali Kala Kendra is one of the leading dance institutes formed with a view of promoting Odissi dance/ vocal music in India from its origin place at Noida. The Institute is dedicated to propagating Odissi dance in the city where the awareness and popularity of this dance is now quite noticeable. The Kendra is focused towards its mission to see Odissi at the crescent of international fame and glory.

Guru Pranam utsav was conceptualised to pay homage and hổnor to late guru Srinath Raut who was my first guru and carry forward his teachings and legacy of Guru Shishya Parampara. We have been organising this festival every year in April and this year we are completing 35 years of Guru Pranam utsav. This festival is also our initiative to make people aware of guruji’s legacy as well as spread the fragrance of Odissi across the region and for this we invite artist from India and abroad to be part of the festival and pay tribute to guruji

This year the festival was being organised on 09th April at Indira Gandhi auditorium Noida and on 19th and 20th April at India Habitat centre New Delhi.

Day 1 – 09th April 2023
On 9th of April 2023 , the first day was dedicated to dance with performances by the great grand disciples of Guruji and the budding dancers of Vaishali as well as Bharatanatyam presentation by disciples of Guru Raman Velayudhan Thyagarajan. The Chief Guest for the evening was Dr. Mahesh Sharma and The event began with the esteemed guest lighting the lamp and performing Shradhanjali to Late Guru Srinath Raut, followed by the dance repertoire Manglacharan an invocatory dance item, which was performed by Vaishali Kala Kendra’s emerging dancers. This was followed by pure dance items Sthayee nritya, Basant and Saberi pallavi. The disciples of Guru Thyagarajan presented Who shamble, Jawali and Jagan mohanare Krishna Keerthanam

Highlight of the day was the “Ramayan” presentation which was our initiative to make today’s generation aware that ramayan is not just a story but has lot of life lessons that can be learnt and applied in our life.

Our Guest Dr Mahesh Sharma presented Guru Srinath Raut Nritya Chudhamani Award to Guru Raman Velayudhan Thyagarajan for his selfless contribution in the field of dance and shared his views on the festival and organisation. He was very appreciative of the efforts and initiative that vaishali being one of the

leading institute of noida takes to recognise the artists who have contributed selflessly in the field of art and culture and he lauded the performances, specially Ramayana and the efforts of each and every participant

Day 2 – 19th April 2023
Day 2nd was dedicated to music and the event started with a presentation by Shri Siddharth Kishore, He presented raag Madhuvanti chota khayal 3 taal followed by Bhajan in raag Bhageshree. He was accompanied by Shri Roopak Mishra on tabla and Shri Shambhu Nath on Sarangi. And next presentation was by Dr Neeta Mathur where she presented Khayal which is the most popular and enchanting musical form of Hindustani classical music and Pushtu Marg Haveli sangeet which is a traditional temple music composed of devotional padas by medieval period saints. She was accompanied by Shri Abhijeet Aich on tabla, Shri Ashiq Kumar on Harmonium, Purva Joshi and Geetika Mishra on Tanpura

The concluding keynote by chief guest Shri Chetan Joshi, a renowned flutist and Sangeet Natak Academy Awardee was really inspiring as he talked about the beauty of Indian art and culture and appreciated the efforts of vaishali kala Kendra for providing platform to the artist and organising this festival.

Day 3 – 20th April 2023
Day 3rd was again dedicated to dance and had Odissi and Bharatanatyam presentation, the event started with lamp lighting and shradhanjali to guru by the chief guest of the evening “Shri Amarendra Khatua” former secretary, Ministry of External Affairs and other guest of honours. The presentation started with Manglacharan – an ode to lord Krishna by senior disciples of vaishali Isha Das, Pankhuri Shrivastava, Khyati Rawat, Sanvi Rastogi, Shiksha Sinha and Akansha Samantaray followed by Oriya Geet Muha Muhi Kishor presented by Dr Jyoti Shrivastava, The presentation was soulful and strongly portrayed her command over all the different bhavas and very strong satvik bhava. This was followed by kedar Komoudi Pallavi, an choreography of Guru Durga Charan Ranbir and Ashtashambhu (composition of Late Guru Srinath Raut). Pallavi was lyrical with graceful body movements and intricate footwork whereas Ashtashambhu depicted the 8 forms of Shiva with strong footwork and balanced body postures.

The following presentations were by the guest artists of the evening Shri Manoranjan Nayak and Raseswari Nayak who presented the duet Odissi – Ardhanareshwar and Bhadra Sinha and Gayatri Sharma who presented Bharatanatyam Duet .

To conclude the festival we presented Guru Srinath Raut Sahitya Chudamani award to Smt. Maya Das to honour her work for odissi world by doing translation of Abhinaya Chandrika.

All the presentations were highly appreciated by the audience and Guest and In the concluding keynote, the guest of honour Dr. Arshiya Sethi remembered the greatness of Guruji and appreciated the efforts that Vaishali has been putting in to promote the art and artist.

The artistic Direction of the event was done by Dr. Jyoti Shrivastava. In these fast-paced times, we need to slow down and reflect on our lives more than ever, and art allows us to do so. This was their attempt to use dancing to counteract the pandemic’s effects, and the entire event was well-organized, visually appealing and entertaining for the audience.