Programme Highlights

Chinmaya Naada Bindu hosts Music and Dance

27th and 28th June, 2010 at Chinmaya Vibhooti, Kolwan

On June 27 and 28 of June 2010, Chinmaya Naada Bindu organized a series of performances at the Chinmaya Vibhooti ashram near Pune, as part of the 60th birthday celebrations of Swami Tejomayananda, head of Chinmaya Mission worldwide.

The Odissi performance on June 27th opened with Batu Nritya by students of Ms. Devi Basu. Inspired by the stone art on the Sun Temple at Konarak in Orissa, the dance depicted the temple with its deity on a chariot drawn by seven horses as well as poses based on carvings in the Natya Mandap located at the entrance to the temple. This was followed by the main act, Jatayu Moksha, by Jhelum Paranjape, Devi Basu, Daksha Mashruwala, senior disciples of Padma Vibhushan Pt. Kelucharan Mahapatra, along with Anu Narayanan. The dancers beautifully told the story of the kidnapping of Sita by Ravana and the ensuing battle with the King of Vultures, Jatayu. The piece culminated in the deeply moving meeting of Sri Rama and the mortally wounded Jatayu, when the Lord embraces the fallen bird and bestows liberation on him. The dancers were ably accompanied by G.Ramprasad on the Mardal, Himanshu Nanda on flute, Agnimitra Behera on violin, vocalist Jatin Sahoo, percussionist Anupam Mishra, Alka Gujar on sitar and Rohan Dehade on manjira.

On the 28th was “Hariprasad Se Hari Prasad”, the much awaited concert by India’s most famous flautist, Padma Vibhushan Pt. Hariprasad Chaurasia. The concert began with an elaborate, serene rendition of raga Jaijaivanti. This was followed by the ecstatic monsoon raga Miyan ki Malhar. Panditji surprised the audience with his next piece, a Carnatic composition in raga Hamsadhwani. He concluded his performance with the mellifluous aarti song, Om Jai Jagadeesha Hare. Brilliant rhythm support was provided by Pt. Bhavanishankar on pakhawaj and Pt. Madan Mishra on tabla. The ensemble included Panditji’s senior disciple Himanshu Nanda on flute and Kum. Amrita Upreti on tanpura. At the end of the concert, Swami Tejomayananda remarked that the first piece was like entering meditation, the next two expressed the joy of enlightenment and the final Aarti song expressed a prayer of thanksgiving.

At this event, the upcoming 1st Annual Naada Bindu Festival for the Arts was announced. To be held for 4 days from September 18 to 21, 2010 at the serene Chinmaya Vibhooti campus, this Festival termed an Arts Immersion Retreat will present performances by world class artists - Nrityagram, Ramaa Bharadvaj, and Dr. Ananda Shankar Jayant (Dance) and Ganesh/Kumaresh, Ashwini Bhide-Deshpande, Kala Ramnath, Sanjeev Abhyankar, Tejendra Majumdar, and Shrikant Deshpande (Music). It will also offer introductory workshops by several of the participating artists along with daily discourses on “Manasa Bhakti Sutra” by Swami Tejomayananda himself.

Inaugurated on September 13, 2009, Chinmaya Naada Bindu is a planned residential training center for classical Indian music and dance. It will be housed in Chinmaya Vibhooti, a spiritual resource center situated on 70 acres of land at the foothills of the sacred Sahyadri mountain range. Plans include ongoing classes along with workshops, performances and conferences that bring together renowned practitioners and educators of classical Indian music and dance with youth and students

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