The three-day fest titled 'Sharad Vaibhav' was hosted by the Association of Bharatanatyam Artistes of India (ABHAI) and Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan's Kala Kendra on 13,14 and 15 September at Bhavan's Venkata auditorium, Mylapore. Each day featured two dance performances and a vocal concert. And the hall was almost full on all the three days.

The fest featured students of Meenakshi Chittaranjan in a dance drama, students of K.J. Sarasa in Kundrakudi Kuravanji, 'Shanmuga Prabhavam' by students of Ranganayaki Jayaraman, 'Kurinji Pookal' by students of Trio Sisters and 'Nrithya Koti' by students of Prof. Sudharani Raghupathy.

Students of Madhuboni Chaterjee, Kolkata, who were scheduled to perform could not make it to Madras and in their place, students of Anitha Guha were featured. Six dancers (including three, aged about 10) stunned the audience with their energetic performance of the 'Dashavataram'.

Vocal concerts featured K. Rama Rao, Nalini Ramprasad and Kumbakonam A. Gajendran. On the concluding day, M.V. Narasimhachari, President, ABHAI brought up the issue of dancers having to pay the sabhas for performance slots. In reply to Narasimhacharis's questions to both dancers and the sabhas, R. Krishnaswami, President, Federation of City sabhas said "As long as there are 'givers', there will be 'takers'. It is up to the dance community to get together and solve this issue."

Chief guests for the 3-day fest were Justice K. Bhaktavatsalam, L. Sabaretnam, Director, IOC and R. Krishnaswami, President, Federation of City Sabhas.

This time, as Narasimhachari was away in the U.S., the new team of committee members (that has taken over recently) worked under the guidance of Prof. Chitra Visweswaran.

ABHAI will celebrate its 14th anniversary on 17 November at Narada Gana Sabha's auditorium, Madras

Contact: Roja Kannan, Secretary, Abhai at Ph: 432 3299, E-mail: abhai_natya@yahoo.co.in Website: www.kanini.com/abhai