Motivation behind curating the Festival “Unbound Beats of India” and its future
By Padmashree and SNA Awardee Smt. Ranjana Gauhar
As I was myself an upcoming artist and struggling to make a place and space for myself in the field of Odissi Dance and at large Indian Classical Dance, I found that there were no platforms for people in the young established category.
Everyone thought that we were too young or they thought only senior dancers attract audiences and therefore the upcoming artists were completely neglected. It was so rare to get a festival or platform that would project the young dancers who had all the energy, all the enthusiasm, commitment, and dedication. But nowhere could they showcase their work, their art and that was very disheartening and extremely heartbreaking.
I had suffered that and therefore when I came to a certain level in my art – a certain level of achievement, I decided I must create a space for the younger dancers who are little above the upcoming who are slightly established who have a lot of talent, dedication who have learned seriously this art.
We must encourage them and we must create a space for them and give them a platform so that they can showcase their talent. That is how I started this festival in 2007 and it was so successful and so well received by the people, the audience and the dancers, they gave a lot of support and they were ready to co-operate as they found a place whereby they have the freedom to do whatever they wanted to do as artists and they can unfold and unleash their energies and talent.
So that gave me a further boost, the media took a very good note of this festival, the dancers the artists all took note of the festival and I decided we will continue this and we did. In between, we took a break from the festival but that didn’t stop it, we are back at it for the last several years again and it is continuing with the support of the artists, the young dancers- their cooperation and of course a certain amount of vision on the part of UTSAV and myself in continuing this festival.
That was the motivation behind the festival we should encourage, we should create platforms for the younger dancers. So Unbound Beats of India as a festival was created and it is doing well and a very sought-after festival by young dancers who send their bio-datas much in advance and there is such a long list of artists who want to participate in it. We are trying to accommodate as many as we can from all over India.
This year, of course, we had the limitation due to the pandemic we could not invite artists from out of Delhi, but never the less we found some beautiful dancers rather I would say Gems in their specialise art forms and we have a very good collection of artists of the younger generation this year.
As far as the future plans are concerned, I feel that since this festival is by the young dancers for the young dancers then why shouldn’t the younger dancers also take more active participation in organising it and executing it. So I have given a lot of responsibility to my own students who are connected with it who are taking a lot of initiative especially Vinod Kevin Bachan he is doing a lot of hard work and taking the initiative to take this forward. It is kind of training for them also and it is an insight into how to take it forward and then to have a vision of making their own festival someday, I am sure they will. I am mentoring these young dancers and training them to handle, execute, coordinate, and ensuring that this festival works out successfully with a lot of joy and happiness. The ultimate plan is that I will pass it on to the younger generation and that they should take it forward.