Bhubaneswar, June 10: Veteran dancers and young artistes from all over the country will perform in the second edition of Samakala dance festival that begins tomorrow.

The three-day festival is organised by the Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi under the aegis of state tourism and culture department.

Six dancers and choreographers of national and international repute will be taking part in the festival.

Padmini Chettur from Chennai will perform the opening act.

A trained Bharatnatyam dancer, her company has showcased productions in many cities across the world such as Paris, Brussels and Seoul.

Calcutta-based artiste Ashavari Majumdar will be the second performer of the inaugural evening. The dancer will present an unconventional tale in contemporary dance.

Picking elements of Kathak, Ashavari will depict mythological character Surpanakha in a new light.

A prominent name in contemporary field of dance, Anita Ratnam from Chennai will showcase her production based on different aspects of women with two different sequences woven into a narrative.

One of the highlights of the show will be Mumbai-based veteran artiste Astad Deboo. The dancer-cum-choreographer has visited Odisha various times in the last couple of years. This time he will illustrate the myriad emotions and the spiritual virtues of mankind in the language of dance.

The final day will see two men perform their unique styles of compositions. Navatej Johar from New Delhi promises to display the dynamics of the body with meticulous physical motions inserted in a storytelling style of choreography.

The concluding performer of the festival is Ramli Ibrahim, a seasoned Odissi dancer from Malaysia whose innovations in techniques and costumes of the state’s classical dance style has often attracted criticism. Here, however, he will use the liberty of contemporary dance to depict a novel theme.

“The objective of organising a contemporary dance fest is to collate the various nuances and vocabularies of different classical and western dance forms. Contemporary ideas in dance crept in with the evolution of different dance styles to form a more expressive unconventional form of dance,” said Chitta Ranjan Mallia, secretary of Odisha Sangeet Natak Akademi.