The Summer series of Mid-day Mantra
Three Saturdays of chat and performance screenings from established and renowned artists, as well as emerging artists, as they discuss dance from their perspectives as choreographers, performers, producers, students, teachers and mentors.
Mid-day Mantras have, over the years presented exceptional live music events to audiences in Birmingham. Presently we are able to offer you these concert events, music and sometimes dance, online wherever you are.
Join us at facebook.com/sampad.arts on Saturdays 26 June, 3 July and 10 July. Currently, Mid-day Mantra’s are FREE online events.
Line up:
Saturday 26 June, 12noon (BST) Urja Thakore presents – Parbati Chaudhury and Shyam Dattani featuring performances by Parbati and Shyam alongside a performance by Meera Patel choreographed by Parbati
Saturday 3 July, 12noon (BST) Kali Chandrasegaram presents – Geetha Shankaran Lam and Hari Krishnan: Dancing in our Fabulous Forties and Fifties!
Saturday 10 July, 12noon (BST) Mira Balchandran Gokul presents – Yuva Gati dancers Shaayiini Ravichantren, Soumya Saladi and Shriya Aaytee
Saturday 26 June, 12noon (BST): Urja Thakore presents – Parbati Chaudhury and Shyam Dattani featuring performances by Parbati and Shyam alongside a performance by Meera Patel choreographed by Parbati.
Urja Desai Thakore is one of the UK’s leading kathak dancers and choreographers, whose sensitive, thought-provoking style is highly regarded by traditionalists and modernists alike. She is the Artistic Director of Pagrav Dance Company (PDC) which promotes kathak giving the form a new context and renewed presentation.
Parbati Chaudhury is a performer, teacher, choreographer, and maker, working for a number of companies and organisations alongside developing her own work. As a maker, Parbati echoes contemporary and classical narratives using dance rooted in kathak and aspects of theatre in collaboration with musicians and composers. Her piece, Fader, was praised by critics at Resolution 2020, and she is currently developing her first production, Goodgirl. As a teacher, Parbati leads kathak classes for Pagrav Dance Company, as well as independently, and is the Kathak Lead Artist at CAT Yuva Gati.
Film screening: Radha Raman – Performed by Parbati Chaudhury.
Film screening: Fader – Performed by Meera Patel, Choreography by Parbati Chaudhury.
Music composed by Jesse Bannister featuring Pratik Shrivastav on sarod, Joe Harris on guitar, Kenny Higgins on bass, and mixed by Otis Khalil Bannister.
Photo by Chris Nash, courtesy of Pagrav Dance Company.
Shyam Dattani is a Kathak dancer who began learning at a very young age with Alpana Sengupta, and later with Abhay Shankar Mishra at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan. He is now under the guidance of his guru Urja Desai Thakore. Shyam has been fortunate to have trained in all three gharanas of Kathak with these teachers, and his style holds all the influences from the various flavours he has experienced under their tutelage.
He won the South Asian Category of BBC Young Dancer 2017, going on to perform in the Grand Finale at Sadler’s Wells. He also achieved second place in the Kalaashram Kathak Contest, European Leg 2017. Since then, he has been taking Vocational Level Kathak exams under the ISTD and is now pursuing a career in dance, post-graduation from Cass Business School.
Shyam has worked with leading South Asian dance choreographers, in various ensemble works, and has performed as a solo artist extensively, both nationally and internationally. He presented his debut solo work, ‘Uday’ in September 2019, which launched his professional solo performance career.
Shyam is now teaching Kathak at Srishti Dance School, and also helps with the organisation’s online presence through their Social Media and Marketing.
Film screening: Omkār – Performed by Shyam Dattani.
Meera Patel is a kathak dance artist. Previously training at CICD in Leicester, she now trains and teaches at Pagrav Dance Company (PDC). Meera’s other teaching roles include tutor for Family Fridays with Sadler’s Wells and DanceWell with Akademi. She performs regularly with PDC and as an independent artist. Meera’s recent work includes performer in PDC’s ‘Kattam Katti’, deviser/performer in Hanuman Tales, co-founder of ReRooted Dance Collective and member of Siobhan Davies Dance’s Next Artist Collective. Through these opportunities she has presented work at venues across the UK.