Rosella Fanelli a thumri in Kathak

lucknow: kathak is not talked about in india alone. in fact, its attractions go beyond merely viewing this fascinating dance form. the idea nowadays is to perform. this became evident when rosella fanelli, an italian, performed at the gandhi bhawan auditorium on friday evening. to boost the dancer's morale, italian ambassador to india benedetto amari was present as the chief guest.fanelli, a noted kathak exponent of lucknow gharana and a disciple of pt. arjun misra, started with krishna vandana. she presented krishna tandav, paramparagat kathak and finally a thumri in kathak. the event was shat shat naman, a programme organised by kathak acadamy lucknow to commemorate the first head of department of kathak in bhatkhande college of music, pt. mohan rao s. kalyanpurkar. when kathak was losing patronage and attendance in lucknow as all the noted kathak gurus like shambhu maharaj and birju maharaj leaving the city for delhi and mumbai, guru kalyanpurkar stayed back in lucknow and worked for the revival of kathak. he had learnt the intricacies of kathak from pt. bindandeen maharaj. friday's programme also included a vocal recital by runa dey. she sang raag jhinjhoti, vilambit in ektaal and drut in teentaal. a taal chakra in teentaal was presented by pt. sheetal prasad misra, ustad ilmas hussain khan, dilip acharya, pt. ravi nath misra, arun bhatt and thakur prasad. the chakra was an unique confluence of different gharanas of tabla comprising delhi, lucknow, and banaras gharanas. at another cultural evening at the rai umanath bali hall, organised by iccr, a very old form of dance, gudiya was performed by mahua mukherjee. gudiya dance is one of the dances which is on the verge of extinction. dating two thousands years back, this dance is considered by some of the scholars as the birth giver to kathakali, kuchipudi, and bharatnatyam. — vinayak sinha