New Delhi: Beginning on November 25, the third Natya Ballet Dance Festival will take place in Delhi, featuring a wide range of performances and masterclasses by some of the most well-known figures in Indian performing arts, including Sharon Lowen, a master of the Odissi, puppeteer Dadi Pudumjee, and Kathak dancer Navtej Johar.

The three-day event will take place here at Kamani Auditorium and Sangeet Natak Akademi and is being organised by the Natya Ballet Centre.

Celebrity dancers Anita Ratnam, Rita Ganguly, Shovana Narayan, Parshwanath S. Upadhye, and Vikram Iyengar, as well as critic Manjari Sinha, will perform at the festival.

The dance theatre productions "Unmasked," "Abha," and "Draupadi," which recount the age-old epics of the Ramayana and the Mahabharata with a contemporary twist, will be featured during the festival.

The first performance, "Unmasked," will examine the character of Ravana through the eyes of his wife, Mandodari. It's a fantastic mash-up of Bharatanatyam, modern dance, and English theatre.

The event will present the ancient art of puppetry with award-winning puppeteers from West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, and Rajasthan in the first in its lecture demonstration series.

The Ramayana is retold through the eyes of Sita in "Abha," which has a unique presentation. Live musicians perform soul-stirring music that is intermingled with poetry in Mishra Awadhi, Kannada, Sanskrit, and Marathi, along with English narrative.
Eminent dancer Singh Johar will learn "abhinaya" for the second lecture demonstration.

The festival's last evening will feature the performance "Draupadi," which examines the condition of contemporary women in light of Draupadi's life in the Mahabharata.

Experts in dance, media, and academics will debate the topic of rebooting the dance space post-pandemic and pushing for solutions in a panel discussion called "Tabula Rasa."

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