Parichay Season 2 returned with a bang featuring Odissi dancer Sanjeev Kumar Jena on 10 July 2022. Natyahasini speaks to Kuchipudi dancer and Guru and founder of Muvva Nritya Raaga Nigamam, Dr. Himabindu Kanoj, the brain behind this amazing Parichay series. Himabindu says that Parichay started after a long brain storming session with team members during COVID times. “Even before the launch of the Parichay Season 1, we were doing programmes under the banner Natyamitram, a resource centre. We organised two festivals and Jigyasa – a quiz for dance schools in Hyderabad, and a special programme for World Dance Day in 2019. Dancers could utilise our resource centre and borrow books to enrich themselves,” the Kuchipudi dancer says.
Not a person to sit tight, the Muvva founder utilised the break to draw up new plans on the drawing board. “I have always believed that we must not wait for opportunities, but create one ourself. Apart from the ongoing online dance classes, we came up with Parichay and since then there has been no looking back,” she states.
Himabindu says that the idea of Parichay was to do a crisp four-minute video. “After working with a senior videographer attached with actor Arun Govil, we decided to go for a short dance video clip. As the name suggests Parichay – to introduce – the artist would introduce himself or herself for one minute and the next three minutes would be the dance presentation,” she says and quickly adds that if it is a 20-minute video – people would lose interest and skip it.
The Muvva founder says that in the First Season of Parichay, 15 dancers were featured. “We started this season with an Odissi dancer as no Odissi dancer was featured in our first season. We are hoping to feature our country’s rich dance forms in Parichay Season 2. It would be lovely if we can feature a Kathakali artist,” she says. The dancer says that their presentation is a small stone in the building of a bridge for encouraging our Indian art forms.
“We have received lot of inquiries for Parichay Season 2. We have our own team to wet the artists bio before featuring them. After selecting them, we give them 10 days’ time to feature them as we seek fresh presentation with no frills attached and in a simplistic manner. In fact, our first artist in Parichay Season 2 has garnered over 1k views on FB & Insta, which makes us very happy,” she says.
Sharing an ace up her sleeve, Himabindu says: “We have plans to have an offline festival with Parichay artists. Have a Jugalbandi with two to three artists of different art forms to give the Hyderabadis and rasikas, a peek into our rich cultural heritage.” The dancer says that after featuring Sanjeev Kumar Jena, they are featuring Shraddha Shalini Malviya, who is currently stationed in Hyderabad city, in this Season of Parichay also to popularise the dance form Chhau.
Explaining the participation in the programme hosted by Bharatanatyam dancer Mridula Anand’s Limited Space and Unlimited Dance, Himabindu says: “I was approached by Mridula ma’am in April last year and at that time, we had not started Parichay. We could not do it when she asked as two of our young dancers were down with COVID and we could do it only after their recovery.” Also, the Muvva founder says that they were keen to do it as the concept appealed to them and little-known artists could perform in the limited space, which is a challenge.