Dance India – a flagship project of the core artistic output of Milapfest (UK) has brought its unique dance camp to Singapore in partnership with Apsara Arts. Dance India Asia Pacific celebrated its fifth year and inaugurated the seven-day camp at the beautiful Goodman Arts Centre.

The faculty this year has artists from three different classical forms: Bragha Bessel, Priyadarsini Govind and Anjana Anand for Bharatanatyam, Ratikant Mohapatra for Odissi) and Sanjukta Sinha for Kathak. Other allied workshop presenters include Lakshmi Vishwanathan and Dr. Chithra Madhavan. An interesting addition this year is a folk core workshop by V. Balasubramaniam from Tiruchi in Tamil Nadu.

Dance India Asia Pacific has done a commendable job of attracting students from all the dance schools in Singapore. This year has a representation from many countries as far as Kazhakastan and Ireland. It was heartwarming to meet an eight-student delegation from Sri Lanka. The enthusiastic delegates spoke about how art has been a healing force in a country recovering from strife.

The inauguration was attended by the Apsara Arts board members and the chief guest Gopinath Pillai. The Kathakali programme by Bhaskars Arts Academy gave a colourful flying start to the camp. With the untiring efforts of the Apsara Arts team headed by Aravinth Kumarasamy and mentor Neila Sathyalingam and the Milapfest flag bearers Alok and Archana, Dance India is in for another successful year!

Posted by Sruti Magazine at Tuesday, June 07, 2016