"I congratulate you and your group of dancers for this amazing performance, Sanskrit - The Mantra Bhasha"
IAAF 2011
International Ancient Arts Festival 2011
heme: Music, Dance and Vital Therapeutic Practices in Traditional Systems of Healing
Highlighting how music, dance and vital therapeutic practices in traditional systems of healing can combine to meet lifestyle challenges of today, the Four-day Festival went off to a flying start. A spate of stories came, regaling the audience, befittingly starting with the Mrs. Sheila Dixit, Chief Minister of NCR, Delhi.
“I had once gone to a village near Gorakhpur, inhabited by only potters. India abounds in such villages where only one community lives, say, of iron-mongers, weavers and so on. This Gorakhpur village, I found, had the potters using mud and earth from a single pond, of great antiquity. Nobody indeed knew how ancient the pond was. Since the potters came out with astonishingly clever designs of images and icons, I asked them how they hit upon their ideas. They all said they imagined and even dreamt of these ideas from roaming near the pond”
The second story came from Prof Eleanor Richards, teaching music therapy in Cambridge, “A mythical king of France once wanted to know how the art of communication was important for children. He segregated two-three tiny babies from all human contacts, but made sure they received the best of nourishment and comfort. After a couple of years, all the babies were found dead. Obviously human connection was vital, which had been missing.”
The opening oeuvre was a performance by Kazak State Akademik Folk and Ethnographical Orchestra. Coming from Kazakstan, the young conductor brought out from the ensemble an amazing blend of rhythms. The festival saw a wide representation of artistes from all across India.
