“Cinema gives glamour to Classical Dance and Dance gives art to Cinema”, said Hema Malini’s Guru Dee

“Art has to educate and entertain.” This was the key message of the connoisseur of Classical Dance, Deepak Mazumdar, who educated 400 students at the 5th VEDA event of Whistling Woods International (WWI) about the divine art form of classical dance. 5th VEDA in itself means ‘Natyashastra’, which teaches dance, acting and drama to develop the artistic skills of every human being.

It was one of the most exciting 5th VEDA evening for students who were glued to Maestro Deepak Mazumdar’s talk on Indian classical dance and its various forms, Hasta Mudras, emotions and postures, which brings grace in one as a whole. He demonstrated the subject through his mesmerising dances and also brought students on stage to learn and perform. Students enacted along with him the various mudras and bhavas present in dance.

Using his own history as a choreographer and dancer as a starting point, his performance on ‘Hey Govinda, Hey Gopala’ reflected the concept of archiving dance where he played both Ram and Sita. He explained the repertoires of Bharatnatyam and how Indian classical dance is the most ancient of all forms as the Gods themselves created it. The connectivity evidenced by collaborative movements and consequentially voked ‘Navras’ in the audience.

Subhash Ghai, Founder and Chairman of WWI, shared his experiences through videos of classical dances of Vyajanthimala, Hema Malini, Madhuri Dixit and Aishwarya Rai on big screen. He explained to the students that they remained super stars for decades mainly because of their training in classical dance.

The program also showed AV of ‘Spiritual Reality – A Journey Within’, which talked about the accelerating shifts in human consciousness: in our emotional and cognitive lines of intelligence, our creative and moral capacities, our sense of self, and how meditation and focus helps us to remain in sync with our inner self.

The AV was followed by the graceful performance of WWI student who is also a trained Kathak dancer, Shristhi Mitra. The conjunction of all those movements performed on the medley of 4 classic songs demanded great fitness and focus from the young performer. It required precision and high skill level by the dancer to convey her expressions.

Whistling Woods has initiated these weekly sessions on various classic art forms for students to participate and connect with legend artistes of our country under the cultural club, 5th VEDA.​