Oh My India!

Last weekend i got this wonderful opportunity to be with SWARA Community Arts Center at Publika, Solaris Dutamas for a show organised by Prevail Productions and this time i was doing what i love most....yes, taking pictures! Since Swara's photographer guy was not available for the weekend i just came in to help take a few pictures for our documentation. I was absolutely delighted as i always felt theres something about taking pictures of dance and dancers or any kind of performances on the whole which is totally satisfying. For instance you catch a move which otherwise might only last a few seconds in life...you get to freeze their beautiful expressions to be admired again and again. Sometimes you in fact get to see a lot more in a picture then in life! But only problem was, at the moment i have a simple Canon powershot camera which though is good for zooming in 30X, it is not able to freeze movements clearly as the features of this camera isn't really meant for sports or movement. Still, since we had no choice and all we needed was some pics for the records i agreed to do my best.  

This show had 10 different genres of indian traditional dance, 9 of it being classical and one folk. Truly amazing performance from all dancers! And i was pretty satisfied with the shots i managed to take! I was so happy to know that everyone in Swara liked my pictures a lot  So, i will let my pics say the rest :)

This one is my fav pic of this amazing dance called Yakshagana, originating from Karnataka, India. as i was helping her, i was amazed at the number of accessories it required, it was all so heavy and took 3 hours to get dress with make up done!

As i was helping her getting dressed up, i told her that no Odissi or Bharathanatyam dancers should ever complain about having to wear too much for performances :) 

And here she is after 3 hours with her amazing performance

Below is the popular dance genre called Kathakali, a dance form of the Malayalees from Kerala, India performed by Geetha Shankaran Lam 

Below is a picture of the awesome Kathak dancer, Nitin Shirale. I am sure you can see how graceful he is from this shot, every turn and every pose is picture perfect though he swirls like a tornado! Truly breathtaking moves and grace. This is the third time i watched him perform and i am falling in love with Kathak already! 

Here's our very elegant and graceful bharathanatyam dancer, Neha Mondal Chakravathy. She does the most aggressive Shiva thandavas with such lightness, almost floating around the stage, simply beautiful!

The emcee explaining about the folk and classical dances with the folk dancers 

Joyous and fun to watch :) 

Below is Geetha Shankaran's son performing Odissi!

Here's the entire team!

I always loved photography but somehow never took it seriously. This recent opportunity and the feedback from Swara members, family and friends made me realise that i should take it further :) 

Big thanks to my sitar master Samuel J Dass who trusted me with my tiny camera for such a huge and important show!! It was quite funny to be standing next to the"canggih manggih" (Malaysian term for professional/ Hi Tech)  camera persons with their huge cameras balanced on tripod taking pictures and video!! One of the photographers actually smiles at me, looks at my cam and says "that's nice" which clearly sounded like... "what are you trying to do with the toy, lady" hehehhe....but well, you just wait OK?? ;)