FLAME celebrated its first World Dance Day festival on campus during last week. It is celebrated worldwide on April 29 through promotion by the International Dance Council (CID), UNESCO. The World dance day project was conceived by Prof. Suparna Banerjee. The program was inaugurated by Guru Shama Bhate, renowned exponent of Kathak and Dr. Subroto Roy, Special Correspondent, DNA, Pune. Guru Shama Bhate talked about her creations and the role of creativity and showed video clippings from her splendid choreographies. In his talk, Dr. Roy critically discussed about the role of media in propagating classical arts with special reference to dance. There were also poster presentations by the students depicting varied issues relating to dance.

As an upcoming institution, FLAME has recognized the importance of dance in academics and promoted 2 basic courses in Traditional and Contemporary dance for the Liberal Education students. The dance students of FLAME performed few pieces under the boundless sky choreographed by Prof. Banerjee and Prof. Dipalle Parmar. Mr. Parag Shah, Chairman of FLAME, the Deans, the faculty and FLAME staff were delightd to witness this show.


Keeping the importance of the goals of the Dance Day and to establish the importance of dance in higher education, seminars were held by FLAME’s esteemed faculty. Prof. Navangul explained the principles of motion, and the importance of Physics in dancing postures and movements which a dancer masters through years of practice; Dr. Dhadwal showed the significance of Mathematics and Geometry particularly in Indian classical dancing; Prof Kadapatti’s ‘Arrested movements or moving sculptures?’ was supplemented by Banerjee’s demonstrations and Prof. Ashtaputre’s talk “Catharsis and dance” was hugely appreciated and invited discussions from the audience’s end. She communicated the socio-psychological aspect of dance to the beginners. Prof. Paturi’s talk on “Baaraati Dance” enlightened the audience with the significance of such non- classical forms. A film shown by Prof. Vanarase ‘A Surprise’ has really left the spectators amazed. Finale was Banerjee’s lecture and video show, ‘Tap-Natyam: A Cultural Pollination’ represented a visual collision of culture in unison of rhythmic cadences. Though marvelous to watch the spectacular collage that combined the body movement, romantic sculptural grace of Bharatanatyam with synchronized movements of tap that left the spectators and learners with a few fundamental broodings over its flourish as a dance discourse.


The program was successfully coordinated by Ms. Pooja Shah and Maj. Gen Mehta [Retd]. A sumptuous food was served by Sodexho to underline the apt analogy by Bharata in his Natyasastra between the relish of art appreciation and food appreciation!