Rourkela, Nov. 6: The five-day long Vedvyas Sangeet Nrytyostav, organised by the Bhanja Kala Kendra, has come to an end in the city.

Residents thoroughly enjoyed the concert that had projected performing arts. On the penultimate day, the evening began with an Odissi chorus by the artistes’ from the Bhanja Kala Kendra. This was followed by a Kathak recital by Jayant Kastuar from Delhi. The audience was highly appreciative of Kastuar’s performance.

Prity, an Odissi dancer of a local institute, came to watch the nuance that involves Kathak. “I am just 16 and learning Odissi. I wanted to see the finer points of Kathak and whether some kinds of improvisation could be done by mixing the two,” she said.

The recital was followed by Daskathia by Raghnath Nayak and group from Ganjam. The elderly audience enjoyed their performance very much. One septuagenarian had come all the way from Panposh to watch it. “These days you hardly get to see this kind of performing arts any more. Last time I had seen something like this was at my native place at Singhpur years ago. My son had brought me here,” he said.

Yesterday, it was Chhau dance that stole the show. The Mayur Art Centre from Bhubaneswar performed it. “We gave a different mix to the last day. That is why you found one vocal performance at the beginning followed by the subtlety of Kathak. We followed it up with more vocal performances with little body movements and finally Chhau took the centre stage,” said Radha Krishna Mahapatra, secretary of the kendra.

The festival laid out a plethora of fine arts performances that included Odissi, Bhangra and Giddha from Punjab, folk from Sambalpur, Manipuri along with Carnatic violin recitals and Odissi vocals.