Indian dance group to grace T&T shores

This month end the celebrated Anjika Group, led by eminent danseuse Priti Patel, is coming to Trinidad and Tobago to showcase Manipuri Martial Dance traditions in the form of a creative dance ballet titled Chitra, based on one of the most important works of Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore. Besides her manifold creative genius, and Priti has had the occasion to perform in almost all important performing festivals in India and abroad, her school (Anjika) has a dual curriculum in that it is a school for Manipuri dance as well as a school for movement therapy for children suffering from cerebral palsy. Priti has undergone formal training from Leslie College, Boston, in dance and movement therapy, and has worked with special needs children in collaboration with the Indian Institute of Cerebral Palsy.

She has developed this unique form of therapy where dance becomes therapeutic and special children with movement coordination disorders are given movement therapy through the medium of dance. The 11-member troupe will be visiting T&T from November 25–30. It is for the first time that such a troupe, both from the Northeast of India as well as of martial arts, will be visiting T&T. The troupe is sponsored by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), New Delhi, as part of the 150th birth anniversary celebrations of Tagore and will also run workshops. The performances will be free. A workshop by Priti Patel is being organised at the Mt Hope Hospital on Saturday, November 26, at 10 am for 30 children affected with cerebral palsy.

Priti will also be performing at Divali Nagar in collaboration with NCIC on Tuesday, November 29, and at the National Academy for the Performing Arts (NAPA), Port-of-Spain, in collaboration with the Ministry of Arts and Multiculturalism on November 30. Further details will be available from the High Commission.