Bhubaneswar, March 12: Dance institute Lasyakala hosted the Aekalavya festival for budding and established young artistes in various classical dance and music forms here.

The festival hosted on Monday was the sixth edition of the Aekalavya series. The guru-shishya tradition has been an ancient system of imparting knowledge in India and though it has disappeared in most spheres. However, in classical dance and music, the custom still continues. This was highlighted in the daylong concert in which each performer dedicated their recital to their guru.

Sarita Mishra, an Odissi dancer from Bangalore showcased a repertoire, in which her guru Bichitrananda Swain choreographed most items.

She was graceful and enchanting on the stage and received a loud applause from the viewers for her effortless presentation of the tale behind Ganga’s journey to earth.

Next was young vocalist Abhijeet Mishra, who was equally deft in both classical and playback singing. Trained by Debendra Narayan Satpathy, he dedicated his renditions to him.

Starting with a Ganesh Bandana as an invocatory piece, Abhijeet went on to present compositions from the Gita Govinda.

Bharatnatyam dancer Pavitra Bhat from Mumbai, groomed by Deepak Mazumdar, won over his audience with an attractive performance. Odissi dancer Pravat Swain, a disciple of Aruna Mohanty from the Odisha Dance Academy, was simply mesmerising in his performance of a Shiva Panchakshari.

Following this sequence describing the different moods of Lord Shiva, Pravat swiftly and gracefully moved on to a conversation between a bride and a groom. Titled Barabadhu this piece was based on Mayadhar Mansingh’s famous poem.

Rinku Sahoo was impressive in his presentation of Ardhanareswar in Odissi while Kathak by Nirmalya Sharnma and his troupe was also colourful. The Kathak recital showed raas and rang or colourful emotions of love while also paying a tribute to Lord Shiva in another sequence.

His guru, well-known dancer Illeana Citaristi, accompanied host Saswat Joshi. During their Odissi performance on Parthasarathi, the dancers enacted the scene from Mahabharata when war is about to begin and Arjun falls weak out of respect and love for his near and dear ones in the enemy camp. Guru Ramahari Das composed the music for the production.

Three artistes, Sarita Mishra, Abhijeet and Pavitra Bhat were presented the Aekalavya Samman this year.

“The festival aims to promote the guru-shishya parampara and we encourage the brightest disciples of various gurus to perform and show respect to their revered teachers,” said Joshi.