Gujarat’s famed traditional dance form Garba has been nominated by India for inclusion in the UNESCO’s intangible cultural heritage list. The latest nomination will be considered for the next year cycle, a top official said on Saturday. Secretary of UNESCO’s Intangible Cultural Heritage Tim Curtis had shared details on it during a presentation made at an event held at the National Museum here to mark the UNESCO tag awarded to Kolkata’s Durga Puja festival last December. The Intergovernmental Committee of UNESCO’s 2003 Convention on Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage had

She’s a pole in one! A Brooklyn-based artist and dance instructor is the nation’s newest pole dancing champion. Donna Carnow, 28, took the top prize at the 2022 US National Pole Art Champion in Orlando, Fla., this month, earning a gold medal, a trophy and $1,000 prize. “Still in shock, my heart is still exploding,” Carnow said in a triumphant Aug. 14 Instagram post. “I truly feel like the luckiest person in the world.” To capture the top prize during the Aug 13 competition — sponsored by The Pole Sport Organization — Carnow bested 11

It is the artist—folk, martial, tribal, classical and ritualistic, under the very gruelling circumstances of past and present day society and with a degree of sacrifice— who has carried the various expressions of India’s tangible and intangible arts through to the present day. This alone has undoubtedly afforded the crucial links that modern or contemporary expression in India, has built itself upon. And it is because of their sacrifice that we can continue as a nation to boast of our great cultural traditions. Secularists must accept the plurality and

It is one of those paradoxes that while song and dance have always been at the heart of Indian film-making culture, very few productions fit into the relatively new genre of ‘dance-films’. Neither the musical, the documentary on dance forms, nor even the full-length feature about a dancer qualify as a dance-film — an avant garde form of cinematic story-telling where movement and rhythm, rather than dialogue, drive the narrative. ‘Manifest,’ the country’s first international dance film festival dedicated to the genre, gets under way here on

What do we mean by “dance songs”? Good question. In a sense, any song that ever got any one person moving in any perceptible direction is a dance song. The Beatles made great dance songs — as did Slayer. Nearly all the hip-hop and reggae ever made is great dance music. But to make our list of The 200 Greatest Dance Songs of All Time, a song had to be part of “dance music culture.” It’s a more specific world, but an enormous one too, going back

A NEW dance troupe launched at the Aula Maxima in UCC has been described as the first of its kind in Ireland showcasing diverse Indian dance styles from Indian folk to Bollywood. Aatma Indian Dance Troupe launched under the theme of Navarasa which translates as “nine human emotions.” Indian classical dance forms included Bharatanatyam, Kuchipudi, Kathak; Indian folk dances: Garba, Dandiya, and Bihu styles. Dancers also showcased Lezim and Bollywood moves Aatma was founded by Dr Lekha Menon Margassery, who works as a Technical officer at the School of Microbiology

Dancing can be many things: An expression of art, a fun hobby, a representation of culture, and a great form of exercise. “Dancing is the ultimate workout,” says Julie Granger, a Paris-based International Sports Sciences Association (ISSA) personal trainer and founder and creator of The Studio Paris and Ballerina Body Training. Not only does dancing involve engaging all of your muscles and limbs, it also gets your heart pumping. Plus, dancing can be a whole lot of fun. A workout you can look forward to? Sign us up. The style of

The first Chinese to study classical dance in India, Zhang Jun had passed away in 2012 The India-China frictions took a backseat for a while in Beijing as a large number of Chinese flocked to a scintillating show of Indian classical dance performances to pay emotional tribute to Zhang Jun, China’s legendary dancer of Bharatanatyam, Kathak and Odissi. Tired of COVID lockdowns and other restrictions in Beijing, over 300 Chinese fans of Zhang thronged the Asia Infrastructure Investment Bank (AIIB) auditorium on Friday night to watch sterling performances from

Bollywood music’s popularity transcends India’s borders. Recently, a man was surprised to hear a song from the 90s playing in the wilderness of Cambodia. While exploring foreign countries can be quite fun, one would often come across unexpected things. Amit Bansal, a retired Army major, was amused to hear the tune of a Hindi song playing on a forest trail. A video he shared on Twitter shows a group of women dancing gracefully to ‘Mhare Hiwda Mein Naache Mor’ from Hum Saath Saath Hai. Bansal, who was travelling in the southeast Asian