Uma Dogra's Raindrops Festival of Indian Classical Dance returns to the physical stage

Harinie Jeevitha and Bhairavi Venkatesan

Away from the audience, for most performing artistes, the past two years have been like a parched summer. Like the first showers of the season, for kathak exponent Uma Dogra, the return of her much-loved Raindrops Festival of Indian Classical Dance, in its physical avatar, brings with it a splash of euphoria. "The last two editions took place online. I'm so happy that we're back to the physical format because performing artistes need the audience in front of them. That feeling of connecting with viewers cannot be replicated online," the founder-director of SamVed Society for Performing Arts confesses, amid a rush of preparations for the festival that opens today.

Dimple Nair

In its 32nd edition now, Raindrops Festival of Classical Dance brings together not just kathak dancers, but young and emerging artistes from different classical dance forms. Over the course of two days, viewers can watch dancers Dimple Nair (mohiniattam), Ruchi Krishna (kuchipudi), Harshini T and Meera Shree Dhandapani (bharatanatyam duet), Varsha Dasgupta (kathak), Swapnokalpa Dasgupta (odissi), Trina Roy (kathak), T Reddi Lakshmi (kuchipudi), and Harinie Jeevitha and Bhairavi Venkatesan (bharatanatyam duet) take the stage in Juhu. "It's an interesting line-up of 10 dancers, of which only one artiste is from the city. The others hail from different parts of India, such as Kolkata, Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi and elsewhere. We've always tried to highlight young artistes from Mumbai and beyond,"
Dogra shares.

Swapnokalpa Dasgupta

The shows, she tells us, are made accessible to dance-lovers and students at affordable tickets as an ode to Mumbai's cultural spirit. "It is the only city where I see people actually buying tickets. Here, the audiences are true art-lovers. So, I make sure that my tickets aren't so steep that people can't afford them," she adds. The funds raised from the two-day event will go towards animal welfare, reveals the animal-lover, who regularly cares for strays.

Uma Dogra

The monsoon festival - which is now a much-awaited part of the city's cultural calendar - marks the beginning of the dance season, too, shares Dogra, letting us in on why she calls it Raindrops. "Rains have a significant relationship with Mumbai and Maharashtra; our lives here depend on them. And when these young dancers come to perform, they bring with them the freshness of raindrops after a long summer," she signs off.

On: Today and tomorrow; 6.30pm
At: Kanaka Sabha, Nalanda Dance Research Centre, Juhu
Call: 9820204951
Cost: Rs 100 (daily pass); Rs 150 (festival pass)