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Seasons with Kalanidhi
Kalanidhi Dance has been working feverishly to curate a year-long performance series, Seasons with Kalanidhi. This production allows us to make Kuchipudi understandable and accessible to new audiences, all while working within the constraints of the pandemic. Over the course of the year, we are presenting 60-minute shows organized into three productions that are aligned with the three seasons--Fall, Winter, and Spring, each of which has both performance and educational components. Do join us for last and final season of the series, Eternal Spring!
Included Series
Seasons with Kalanidhi is a year-long collection of productions aimed to showcase the intricacies of Kuchipudi and to make our art form available, understandable, and cherished by all. Each performance within this series is a 60-minute live-streamed performance hosted on our virtual stage followed by a live discussion about the show.
Our Fall production, titled Fall for Kuchipudi, is all about the magic of Kuchipudi. Through the three shows in this season, themed around Kuluku, Lyricism, and Expressiveness, we hope to show audiences new and old what it is, exactly, that makes Kuchipudi so delightfully unique and captivating. We acknowledge that the COVID-19 pandemic has exacerbated hardships in our community, and as such we have decided to conduct our fall season in partnership with the Capital Area Food Bank, a DC-area nonprofit that for forty years has been committed to fighting food insecurity.
Winter Wonderland, a production that highlights the inextricable link between Indian music and dance, through an exploration of the wondrous world of rhythm and melody, raga and tala. After all, if dance is the hidden language of the soul, then music is the vehicle that brings it to light. As an education-based non-profit ourselves, we at Kalanidhi are proud to be able to partner with an organization as impactful and well-reputed as AIM for Seva, and do what we can do to support their mission.
This past fall and winter, we shared with you some of our favorite elements of Kuchipudi. This Eternal Spring, we’re going to build on all of those ideas by sharing with you two full Kuchipudi productions, which tell powerful stories from India. Chandalika and Bhagmati are, in essence, about love, decency, and wisdom. But they do not shy away from discrimination and injustice -- their central conflicts are driven by caste and religion. And they both show us something truly amazing: the resilience of women.
Women’s rights and gender equality are at the core of our beliefs. We are proud to conduct Eternal Spring in partnership with ASHA for women, an organization empowering South Asian women in the DC Metro area. ASHA provides support to women living in abusive marriages and homes. Created to circumvent language, cultural, and social barriers that can stop many from seeking help, ASHA has helped hundreds of women and children move on to lead safer, happier lives.
