Prembabu Sharma
Prerna Utsav, 2015, is the annual presentation of Bharatnatyam by the students of Kalyani Kala Mandir, disciples of Guru Rashmi Khanna.
Kalyani Kala Mandir was established in 2002 and has since been engaged in imparting practical and theoretical training in bharatnatyam to aspiring dancers. It has organized numerous presentations ranging from pure classical to semi classical to folk as well as conducting successfully the arangetrams by many of its senior students in the past few years , all of which have been covered by the print and live media alike with raving reviews.
To encourage its students to perform better, Kalyani Kala Mandir also gives scholarships to the best student of each batch, based on their sincerity, improvement, regularity and seriousness towards the art.
The evening s program started with a Mallari, an invocatory item choreographed by Rashmi Khanna and performed by Abhishree Joshi, Arushi Bahl, Rishika Singh and Ishika Chopra. Then followed Anandmayi, an item in praise of the mother, this was performed by Ridhi Gupta, Ananya Chopra, Ganya Arora, Avishi Chopra, Sameera Nanda and Aahana Mohanty. These girls further presented Jatiswaram set to raga Kannada, talam Rupakam. Algiri Nandini, set to ragamalika in taalam aadi in the praise of Goddess Parvati was presented by Abhishree Joshi, Arushi Bahl, Ishika Chopra, Rishika Singh and Bhagya Singh. This was a choreography of Guru Smt Kalyani Shekhar. The students of Kalyani Kala Mandir further performed Madam Mekyum, a folk item .
The evening ended with a Tillana in raga Kamas, talam aadi. It was a brilliant number of pure dance which had strong footwork and many picturesque poses. Tillana was Choreographed by Guru smt. Kalyani Shekar and Rashmi Khanna and performed by Rishika singh, Bhavya singh, Ishika chopra, Arushi bahl and Abhishree joshi.
‘I am extremely happy and satisfied with all my students today as their hard work and dedication were hugely appreciated by the audience’, said Guru Rashmi Khanna on this occasion.