Amaravati Nrityotsav off to a colourful start

Vijayawada: The two-day Amaravathi Nrityotsav-2021, the Indian dance festival, organised by Nataraj Music and Dance Academy began amidst a big fanfare at Siddhartha Auditorium here on Saturday night.

On the inaugural day, four teams from Odisha, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and Assam performed and received applaud from the elite audience.

The festival commenced with the performance of Ileana Citaristi. Ileana is originally from Italy and came to Odisha to learn Odissi and settled in the State. Her spectacular dance item "Siva Leelalu" was excellent and captured the attention of the audience. Ileana was awarded a Lifetime Achievement Award on this occasion for her best services to classical dance.

The Government of India has recognised her services and presented 'Padma Shri' Award.

Geeta Narayan from Visakhapatnam showcased two beautiful items—Tarangam and an Annamacharya composition 'Satulara Chudare Sravanabahulastami'. With her expressions and postures she mesmerised the audience. Instead of Tarangam, she might have chosen another composition since everyone is doing the same Tarangam. The troupe consisting about 20 artistes led by Jitu Borah gave a spectacular Assamese Bihu dance and the team received applause from all sections of the audience.

Kashmira Trivedi from Maharashtra presented a beautiful ballet on Ramayana with the title "Sri Rama Bhajan". In this dance ballet Trivedi portrayed some incidents of Ramayana like Rama Kalyanam, Vanavasam, Seetaapaharanam, Jatayu Vadha and Ravana Samharam. Dancers Swathi, Sardha, Madhura, Ruchi, Vaishnavi and Takshata participated in this ballet.

Additional Commissioner, Income Tax B. Satyanarayana Raju inaugurated the festival.

Chairperson of the Amaravathi Nrithyostsav Ilapuram Sushma, Ilapuram Raja, M Ram Kumar, MSVM Prasad, B Ramana Kumar, Ravi Sankar Narayan, Poturi Lalitha and others were present.

City-based dance teachers Bhagavatula Venkatrama Sarma, Vedantam Parthasarathi, Sarada Ramakrishna, Alivelu Manga, Suravarapu Ramesh Babu and Ch Ajaykumar were also felicitated on this occasion.

B Vikram Kumar, Director, Amaravathi Nrithyotsav 2021, supervised the programme and Tangirala Annapoorna gave excellent spontaneous commentary.