NCPA’s Five-Day Pravaha Dance Festival Showcases Classical and Contemporary Debuts

The NCPA's Pravaha Dance Festival presents five evenings of classical, contemporary, and creative dance making their Mumbai debuts. Comprising Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Odissi, contemporary dance-theatre, and multi-disciplinary forms, the festival features Indian and international artistes premiering their works in Mumbai for the first time. From explorations of faith and identity to multigenerational family narratives, the works showcase what classical and contemporary dance mean in today's practice. These performances represent artistic tradition and history, serve as vessels for spiritual investigation, create sites for cultural learning, and offer a language for examining human experience across time and geography. 


Day 1 –

Kathak By Gauri Sharma Tripathi & ANKH;

Bharatanatyam By Parshwanath Upadhye & Adithya P. V.

Experimental Theatre | December 4, 2025 | 6.30 pm

An NCPA Presentation

The opening evening of the Pravaha Dance Festival brings together two distinctive voices in Indian classical dance. Gauri Sharma-Tripathi presents Bodyline with Amara Nritya Kala Hansa (ANKH), followed by Asthitva: Tale of a Pregnant King, where Parshwanath Upadhye and Adithya P. V. use Bharatanatyam's storytelling traditions to question societal constructs around gender and identity.

Sharma-Tripathi's journey spans three generations—she learned from her mother, Padma Sharma, and now performs alongside her daughter, Tarini. As founder of ANKH, she challenges Kathak's conventional presentation while continuing its legacy, maintaining its technical integrity, and keeping its traditional roots alive for new generations of Kathak dancers.

Upadhye, recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi's Yuva Puraskar and the Madras Music Academy's Best Dancer award, leads the Punyah Dance Company. His collaborator Adithya P. V., who trained under the dance duo Kiran Subramaniam and Sandhya Kiran, known as the ‘Kirans’, before studying with Dr. Sudharani Raghupathy, brings additional depth to their shared choreography. In Asthitva, they depict a king who, desperate for an heir, finds himself carrying his own child. This premise becomes a meditation on masculinity and power through all four dimensions of Abhinaya.

Age Recommendation: 6+ years | Late entry not permitted

Duration: 2 hours

Tickets (Inclusive of GST)

Members: Rs. 270, 180/-

Non-Members: Rs. 300, 200/-

Day 2 - Multidisciplinary Dance By Dr. Usha RK & Troupe

Experimental Theatre | December 7, 2025 | 6.30 pm

An NCPA Presentation

Dr. Usha RK presents Shringara Bhakti 2.0, a multi-disciplinary dance production that examines the intersection of romantic love and spiritual devotion through four extraordinary women from Indian mythology—Rati, Kamakhya, Sita, and Meera. The production asks whether erotic love (shringara) transforms into devotion (bhakti), or whether the two remain inseparable aspects of the same experience. In this production, each character receives the same arrows from Rati and Manmatha. Yet, their responses diverge—Kamakhya, as Kamapradayini, creates the path of bhakti through desire, Sita discovers devotion as the natural extension of separation, and Meera's obsessive love questions whether ecstasy is a means or an end.

Performed by Arundhati Patwardhan, Navia Natarajan, Soundarya Srivatsa, and Sayani Chakraborty, the work weaves together multiple classical dance traditions and languages, including Assamese, Sanskrit, Avadhi, Hindi, Tamil, Kannada, and Marathi, with musical direction by Vidya Harikrishna and nattuvangam by Kalishwaran P.

Dr. Usha RK brings a unique perspective to this performance, shaped by her work as a former Member Secretary of UNESCO's Intangible Cultural Heritage division at the Ministry of Culture. She led the successful nomination of Varanasi to UNESCO's Creative Cities Network and brought yoga and the Kumbh Melas onto UNESCO's Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage. Her tenure as Director of the Jawaharlal Nehru Cultural Centre in Moscow and her training in both Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam inform her cross-cultural approach to classical dance.

Age Recommendation: 6+ years | Late entry not permitted

Duration: 2 hours

Tickets (Inclusive of GST)

Members: Rs. 270, 180/-

Non-Members: Rs. 300, 200/-

Day 3 –Odissi By Namrata Mehta;

Bharatanatyam By Anand Satchidanandan

Experimental Theatre | December 11, 2025 | 6.30 pm

An NCPA Presentation

The third evening of the Pravaha Dance Festival pairs two contemplative works that reinterpret classical idioms through philosophical inquiry. Namrata Mehta presents Ayudha – The Divine Arms, an Odissi exploration of how the weapons of gods—the Trishul, Chakra, Gada, Bow and Arrow, and Brahmastra—function as metaphors for inner transformation rather than instruments of destruction. Anand Satchidanandan follows with a Bharatanatyam portrayal of Sri Ramana Maharshi's life and teachings, tracing the saint's journey from self-realisation to his final dissolution into Arunachala. Both works ask audiences to look beyond the surface narrative toward deeper questions of consciousness and purpose.

Mehta, a senior disciple of Daksha Mashruwala, holds a Master's in Performing Arts (Odissi) from the University of Mumbai and received the Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra Yuva Pratibha Samman in 2017. As a graded Doordarshan artiste and ICCR empanelled performer, she has represented India at the Summer on Stross festival in Zagreb and participated in cultural exchanges with Taiwan's Tjimur Dance Theatre. Her choreography examines how divine weapons have evolved from battlefield tools to symbols of balance, vision, strength, focus, and restraint. Satchidanandan, who grew up in Indonesia before training under legendary gurus including Padma Bhushan V.P. Dhananjayan, works as a dancer, curator, and educator whose practice bridges tradition with interdisciplinary research.

Age Recommendation: 6+ years | Late entry not permitted

Duration: 2 hours

Tickets (Inclusive of GST)

Members: Rs. 270, 180/-

Non-Members: Rs. 300, 200/-

Day 4 –Bharatanatyam By Keerthana Ravi

Bharatanatyam By Pavitra Bhat

Experimental Theatre | December 18, 2025 | 6.30 pm

An NCPA Presentation

Day 4 of the Pravaha Dance Festival presents an evening dedicated to the many forms of devotion through two distinct Bharatanatyam works. Keerthana Ravi premieres Ammaiyar – Shiva's Ghoul Devotee, exploring the life of Karaikal Ammaiyar, the earliest Nayanar who chose disfigurement and exile in cremation grounds as her path to complete surrender. Pavitra Bhat follows with Paalini the Protector, a meditation on Adi Parashakti's role as the nurturing force that pervades all creation, protecting without discrimination across time and space. Both productions examine how absolute faith reshapes identity and existence.

Ravi trained under Padmini Ramachandran for over two decades before continuing extensive study with Rama Vaidyanathan in New Delhi. She stood first in the senior Bharatanatyam examination conducted by the Government of Karnataka and holds an 'A' grade from Doordarshan Kendra, having won numerous competitions at state and national levels. Her work on Karaikal Ammaiyar traces a life lived in inversions—a woman who transcended youth by requesting to become ghoul-like, who crawled on reaching Kailasa rather than walk on sacred ground, and whose compositions preceded other Nayanmars by two to three centuries, forming the bedrock of bhakti Siva literature. 

Bhat, who trained under Sikkil Vasanthakumari and later the renowned Deepak Mazumdar, founded Pavitra Art Visual Institute (P.A.V.I.), which now has over 300 students, many holding CCRT Junior Scholarships. An 'A' grade Doordarshan artiste who has performed extensively in India and abroad, Bhat's choreography depicts the divine mother who creates the animate and pervades all existence, offering grace in exchange for nothing but complete devotion—a protection that demands no luxury, knows no discrimination, and operates across all times and places.

Age Recommendation: 6+ years | Late entry not permitted

Duration: 2 hours

Tickets (Inclusive of GST)

Members: Rs. 270, 180/-

Non-Members: Rs. 300, 200/-

Day 5 –More More Paradise by Les Petites Choses Production;

Creative Dance by Isha Sharvani & Troupe

More More Paradise by Les Petites Choses Production

Experimental Theatre | December 19, 2025 | 5.00 pm
An NCPA Presentation

Les Petites Choses Production from Taiwan presents More More Paradise, a contemporary dance work that transforms personal upheaval into creative expression. Choreographer Lin Su-Lien reimagines paradise not as an ideal realm but as the full spectrum of human experience—joy, anger, sorrow, love, separation, and reunion. Drawing inspiration from Hieronymus Bosch's The Garden of Earthly Delights, the work evolved from a 2023 site-specific performance into its own distinct form, reflecting two years of navigating physical and emotional imbalances while discovering resilience through community support.

Les Petites Choses Production is a cooperative of 17 creators dedicated to participatory art practices in unconventional spaces. Their commitment to collaboration has earned them recognition as Taipei City Performing Arts Group of the Year for three consecutive years (2021-2023), selection as Taiwan's representative at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe: Taiwan Season (2020), and performances at the Paris Cultural Olympics Taiwan Pavilion and Théâtre National de Chaillot during Taiwan Week (2024). The production features seven performers—Yang Nai-Hsuan, Shen Le, Chang Chien-Hao, Chen Yi-En, Chen Yi-Ju, Hsiao Yu-Chang (YaoBai), and Chang Yu-Chia (Diao)—in a 25-minute work that combines movement with live music execution by company manager Chen Hsin-Ning. Visual artist Chuang Che-Wei's original concept translated Bosch's Renaissance triptych into installations, generative AI paintings, costumes, and choreography, which Lin has now evolved into a meditation on the body's faith and the mind's turbulence.

Age Recommendation: 6+ years | Late entry not permitted

Duration: 1 hour

Tickets (Inclusive of GST)

Members: ₹270 & ₹180

Non-Members: ₹300 & ₹200

KiN by Isha Sharvani & Daksha Sheth Dance Company

Jamshed Bhabha Theatre | Friday, December 19, 2025 | 6.30 pm
An NCPA Presentation

Isha Sharvani presents KiN, a multigenerational family portrait told through Kathak, Mallakhamb, contemporary dance-theatre, aerial acts, and live music. Performed by Sharvani alongside her mother, Daksha Sheth, father Dev Issaro, brother Tao Issaro, and nephew, Luca Issaro, the work traces how tradition transforms as it passes through generations. The production moves between Indian temples, villages, and abstract realms with kaleidoscopic visuals, exploring themes of multiculturalism, belonging, and kinship while weaving the family's Indian and Australian heritage into a single artistic statement.

Sharvani trained under her mother, Daksha Sheth and studied yoga, gymnastics, Kathak, Kalaripayattu, Malkhamb, Mayurbhanj Chhau, and aerial ring technique before becoming principal dancer of the Daksha Sheth Dance Company. She has performed over 3,000 shows across 30 countries at venues including the Royal Albert Hall and Kennedy Centre, and at festivals such as the Holland Dance Festival and Edinburgh International Festival. Her work in 13 Bollywood and Malayalam films, including Luck by Chance alongside Irrfan Khan, Kajol, and Hrithik Roshan, has reached an estimated 20 million viewers. Since relocating to Perth in 2015, she has collaborated with Ochre Contemporary Dance Company and Legs on the Wall. KiN premiered at Queens Park Theatre in Geraldton to a nearly sold-out house, with audiences rating its impact at 9.2 out of 10.

Co-director Russell Thorpe, a WAAPA alumnus and founding member of Perth's Co3 company, brings contemporary dance vocabulary, while composer Tao Issaro—a WAAPA percussion graduate who has performed at the Kennedy Centre and Royal Albert Hall—creates a soundscape that moves from sacred chanting and santoor to rock percussion. Daksha Sheth, recipient of the 2010 Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, and Dev Issaro, who has overseen stage and lighting design for the company's productions since 1986, complete the creative team in this 55-minute work that demonstrates how age, maturity, and youth coexist within a single artistic lineage.

Age Recommendation: 6+ years | Late entry not permitted

Duration: 2 hours

Tickets (Inclusive of GST)

Members: ₹630, ₹450 & ₹270

Non-Members: ₹700, ₹500 & ₹300