Pagrav Dance Company presents: BAHARAN - Spring

BAHARAN is a contemporary dance piece exploring human emotions during the different phases of the Spring Season. It features highly charismatic Kathak dancers combining traditional dance with modern choreography, poignant poetry and collaboration with Indian and Western Classical music.

The show has three distinct parts depicting in seamless transitions the different phases associated with the Spring season:

• The wintry longing for Spring
• The exciting arrival of Spring
• The glorious effect of Spring.

Created by young choreographer Urja Desai -Thakore who choreographed Bells at Trafalgar Square, BAHARAN is the result of a grant from Arts Council England that was awarded to Pagrav Dance Company for research and development of a work that would "bring out the experience of the hope-filled journey people make every year from grey winters to spring, which brings light, sound and joy into people's lives, positively affecting people's moods, interactions and activities".

The show features three dancers, Urja Thakore, Akash Odhera and Archita Kumar and four musicians with Hiren Chate on tabla; Jonathan Mayer on sitar; Lisa on flute and Nicole Collarbone on Cello.

Praise for Baharan: "Urja Thakore has established herself as a dancer who has depth of knowledge of her form. Thakore's lines have clarity and there is grace and softness in the wrists, arms and upper torso. Her expression has compassion and humanity, which gives her the aura of mother Earth as befits her role in the piece.
Hiren Chate's tabla playing is finely nuanced and supportive of the dancer......
The concluding Tarana with three dances is well-choreographed with an entrancing musical composition that brings the performance to a satisfying close.
The evocation of spring in the vocal rendition of alap made the audience hunger for more...." -Sanjeevini Dutta Pulse magazine June'08