June 1st, 2009 Gurukul Dubai
For the savvy world traveler looking for a perfect luxury hotel, Dubai holds the answer. Located in an international hotspot for culture and commerce, Dubai city offers wonderful accommodations in a desert paradise. There are beaches and mouth-watering restaurants, and a rich urban culture that is on the brink of some fantastic new identities. A place already rich in multicultural expressions, Dubai is a study in fascinating shifts, where cultures come in contact with one another to form new combinations.
Gurukul Dubai is one of these combinations, started by renowned Kathak dancer Pali Chandra. Now the artistic director of Gurukul Dubai, her life mission is to promote South Asian Art and Culture the whole world over. Bringing Indian dance forms to the UAE is an interesting prospect, and Gurukul is certainly capable of fulfilling its mission. It began in 1990 Lucknow, India, and then took root in England over the next 15 years. Now centered in Dubai, and busy offering workshops and performances in Kathak dance, Gurukul has plans to participate in global dance festivals in the coming years.
Part of a wave of international dance forms being taught and studied in Dubai, Pali Chandra sees this as part of a cultural evolution that is part of the heart of Kathak. A traditional style that is developed to unite the body with the mind and spirit, Kathak is a unique form of storytelling, that has peculiarly stunning appeal in live performance. Although many of the local dance trends see it as another form of exercise, the practice is very serious, and honors a long tradition of Indian dance. Gurukul is very focused in its mission while maintaining many simultaneous and very ambitious projects. They have an environmental project, a Green Orchestra, which had an audience of 2,000 at Global Village in February, 2008, and a project devoted to various aspects of Kathak dance called Rhythm Shift, which was performed at the World Theatre in Global Village.
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