NEW DELHI, INDIA, July 16, 2011 (Times of India): Dancer and collector Mohan Khokar (1924-99) dedicated all he had to documenting and archiving almost a century of India’s dance history. Now, for the first time, this extensive and treasured collection of photographs, costumes, recordings, films, paintings, sketches and other dance-related material will be showcased in an exhibition to be inaugurated in the capital Sunday. The exhibition will open to the public on July 18 and will run till July 24.
Organized by Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and conceptualized by Khokar’s son Ashish, a dance critic, the exposition, ‘A Century of Indian Dance:1901-2000’, will feature India’s dance forms and its evolution over the 20th century. “The entire collection showcases the milestones in Indian dance forms and how they have evolved with time. The idea behind chronicling was to keep them as old reference points,” said Ashish.
The exhibition, which is also being called the national launch of the Mohan Khokhar Dance Collection, will be open in five parts at the Visual Arts Gallery at India Habitat Centre. From the use of dance in old Air India advertisements to postage stamps retrieved from Singapore showing Indian dances, the collection promises to bring forth some unique objects, such as a 75-year-old Nataraja made of broken bangles and beads. “The collection records anyone and anything associated with dance. It also includes dance forms represented on calendars, fire cracker boxes, sketches, and Kathakali dance representation on textile and paintings,” said Ashish.