When Kathak exponent Pandit Durga Lal passed away in January 1990, Uma Dogra, then 32, stayed back in Delhi for the last rites. Heartbroken though she was, gritty determination bubbled in her — to spread her guruji’s name far and wide. “I promised him then, that although he had gone too soon, I will never let his name fade till the last breath of my life,” the Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee recalls. After she returned to Mumbai, she set up the Sam Ved Society for Performing Arts. Within a year of her guruji’s passing, she put together the first edition of the Pandit Durgalal Festival. Now, the festival, which showcases master dancers from across disciplines, returns in its 33rd edition in collaboration with the National Centre for the Performing Arts (NCPA).

The evening will feature performances by two leading dance practitioners, Meenakshi Srinivasan (bharatanatyam) and Gauri Diwakar (kathak). The show will kick off with a short presentation by senior students of the Uma Dogra School of Kathak. “Our 20-minute performance is centred around Ananda Shiva, or lord Shiva in the ananda roop. The dancers will then perform a beautiful ashtamangal; this piece was initially created by my guruji, and after him, I executed it,” shares Dogra.