The Natyanjali Dance Fests are special. So, as the festivals unfold in Tamil Nadu, VINCENT D' SOUZA, who will be hopping from one fest to another, will file his reports here. The journey, the festival, the sidelights and the people.
From Feb.25 to March 2. Log in every day.

Day Two at the Chidambaram Natyanjali.
The Shivaratri rush has thinned, the skies are speckled with silver clouds and, had the eastern gopuram been free of the scaffolding used to paint the sculptures on it, the sight above would have been stunning.

The Natyanjali always has space for little-known academies of Tamil Nadu. They may get just about 20minutes on stage but they seem to appreciate the invitation.

The Natyanjali is not a tourism festival. Neither is it a dance mela. It is an aradhana to Lord Nataraja.
So, to accommodate as many dancers as is possible, the organizers extended the Sivaratri recitals to go on till about 6am on Day Two!

Chennai-based guru Sheela Unnikrishnan calls us up at 4am, wondering if we would be awake to witness her sishyas
perform . . .

At 2am, Meenakshi Chittaranjan's sishya from Hungary, Ildyko Gulyas, performs. The Natyanjali has space for dancers from all over. In the past, dancers from Sri Lanka, the Gulf, Singapore, Switzerland and from the USA, have performed here.

The junior students of guru Vidya Sundaresan from Tiruchi open the Day Two performances. Chidambaram's Kavitha gets ten minutes, next. And then, Chidambaram's own Shivasakthi Dance School.

  
             Students of a Chidambaram dance academy

A dozen of them, or more, who learn dance in a traditional tiled house in the town. Expectedly, there is a large audience of family and friends to see them perform.

Backstage, we meet Saks aka Subramaniam Naidoo from South Africa. He and his family are touring Tamil Nadu and he extended his stay here to soak in the Natyanjali. "We should have dancers from South Africa here," he tells us.

Pilgrimage of another kind it is for Minal Prabhu who runs the Mudrika School in Bangalore. A Kalakshetra alumni, Minal says she always wished for a slot at Chidambaram. Now, she and four of her dancers, get the wish fulfilled.

  
                  Dancers of Mudrika School, Bangalore

Odissi dancers Sandeepa Palit and Bijayakumar Sahoo are rather late for their recital. The Mudrika dancers step in. Co-ordinating over 100 artistes every day is the biggest task for the organizers.
They are short of rooms and artistes have to share rooms at local maths.

  
           Odissi dancers Bijayakumar and Sandeepa

Veteran Radha (yes, sister of the famed actress Baby Kamala of AVM films) performs. It seems to be a great moment for her, it shows on her face

The big show of the evening is the Kathak performance of the Kathak Kendra, a constituent of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, which is doing the Natyanjali circuit with 25 artistes. They get a huge round of applause after every piece. Guru Geethanjali Lal is overwhelmed with the experience. "I composed a special piece for this tour," she says.

  
      Performance by artists of Kathak Kendra, New Delhi

Later, the artistes are surprised at the dining hall by caterer Vageesan - chappatis, salads and potatoes; food they'd love. The tabla artiste tells me that they enjoyed the south Indian meal at Kumbakonam. "Superb,"he says, as he prepares to drive down to Chennai tonight to catch a flight to Delhi.

Chennai based dancer-guru J. Suryanarayanamoorthy ends Day Two. But not before his little sishya, Shruti Priya wows us at 10.30pm.

Day Two at Chidambaram is over. Some 400 people stay on till the end.

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