Eminent Bangladeshi dancer Tamanna Rahman will perform with her group tonight at the Bengal Classical Music Festival 2013. She is the first Bangladeshi dance artiste who will perform with live musicians at the biggest festival of its kind.
Tamanna and her team’s today’s performance will be accompanied with an array of skilled musicians like Guru Kalavati Devi and Premila Devi in vocals, Brojen Kumar Singha in poong (Manipuri traditional percussion), Amlan Haldar in violin and flautist Soumyojyoti Bose. The whole piece is composed and choreographed by Guru Kalavati Devi.
Dhaka Tribune caught up with the dance exponent Tamanna Rahman to know about the upcoming grand performance and more:
How does it feel to be the first Bangladeshi dance artiste performing at the festival?
It is a great honour for me to perform at such a big platform. I am grateful to Bengal for their kind support.
What you are going to perform today?
I will perform three Manipuri pieces – Gouranga Abahan, Kaliya Daman and Dasavatara. Gouranga Abahan is an invocation to Lord Chaitanya and describes the beauty of his graceful dance. Kaliya Daman narrates the vigorous dance of Lord Krishna and Kaliya Nag is based on the tandava (fierce) aspect of Manipuri dance. Dashavatar in a way brings out this evolution through the triumph of good over evil.
How long did it take for you to prepare for the festival?
I have been preparing for my performance for the last one and half months. I went to Kolkata with both of my students who will assist me with my performance. We stayed in guru Kalavati Devi’s house and practiced under her guidance and a professional Manipuri musical troupe.
What do you think about the interests of young generation on classical dance?
Classical dance is all about devotion and patience. Now, our social system has become very technology-based and robotic. Children do not have that much time for performing arts as they are busy with curricular lessons apart from their school time. Moreover TV, internet, computer game, and mobile phone occupy their time and they do not have that much patience and devotion for classical dance. They look for easy ways to become popular by using social networking media.
What are the scopes of classical dance in Bangladesh?
There are very few people in Bangladesh who know about classical dance. Without proper support from the government, it’s very difficult to spread it amongst the mass people. We need to take more steps to expose classical dance at the root level. I think it’s our responsibility to introduce our children to classical music and dance from an early age.