Vision-Aid, a Lexington based non profit that serves the visually disadvantaged in under-served regions of India is in full gear for another great annual dance show on Sunday, July 17th at Ashland High School.  Each year, for the past three years, Vision-Aid has been organizing very high quality dance programs to help raise funds for the visually impaired in under-served regions.  The enormous effort and talent that is brought to bear into these shows has produced memorable events, bringing together top talent from the Greater Boston Area, working under the guidance of a skilled dance choreographer from India.

Exciting New LVRC Initiative being launched in 2011

Funds raised from this year’s event will go towards opening a new top-of-the-line Low Vision Resource Center for the visually impaired in Visakhapatnam, India that will bring state-of-the-art devices and access technologies within the direct reach of many visually impaired individuals. This new centre is a unit of Vision Aid Charitable Services Society, Visakhapatnam.This centre is the most comprehensive one of the only three such centers devoted to the service of the vision impaired in India. This resource center is a permanent open-­access exhibition/ demo/ training /guidance facility to give advice, encouragement and technological help to vision impaired persons, students, parents and teachers. 

A remarkable show in the making

This year’s event follows in the footsteps of the dazzlingly brilliant, sold-out dance productions Ramayana, Krishna and Justice of the Anklet (Silapathigaram).  We are delighted to present Nine Pathways to Devotion (Navavidha Bhakti), a Dance Ballet. According to the Indian scriptures there are nine paths to devotion or "Bhakti". Each path is different yet leads to the same destination.

Starting from the times of Indian mythology to the day of modern man, there are several popular stories of how the destination has been reached. Navavidha Bhakti, or Nine Pathways to Devotion, is a unique production that depicts these nine paths by relating nine selected stories ranging in time from the ancient to the modern; all through the traditional dance form of Bharatanatyam. Dramatic tales drawn from Indian epics like the story of Prahalad, tales from the temple of Guruvayur, folk tales like Gajendramoksham, stories from the life of Radha and Krishna, the touching story of Sudama, the story of Akruran, the famous story of Draupadi's devotion from the Mahabharata and more are knit together through pure dance movements in the Bharatanatyam style to create a mosaic of devotional  modes.   English narration completes the picture by making the production accessible to ALL!

Vibrant New Choreography

The concept and choreography for the production are provided by Kalamandalam Latha, an award winning choreographer from Kerala, India, who is bringing her unique choreography to Boston for the first time. Music for the show has been specially produced and recorded using popular pieces from several languages. The unique choreography has never been presented anywhere before.

Bringing together the Best Dance Talent of Boston

The production is co-produced by Jeyanthi Ghatraju, Sapna Krishnan and Ranjani Saigal who have presented many unique productions including Ramayana - A Visual Journey, Krishna, Justice of the Anklets, Navarasa Nayika and others.   Participants in the production include over 30 dancers - both teachers and accomplished students, drawn from over 15 local dance schools working harmoniously together to create a visually dazzling display of dances and devoted to supporting the needs of the visually challenged.

The dancers in this production are:

Aishwarya Nambi, Amrita Saigal,  Chitanya Gopu,  Devi Patel,  Dhanashree Karmarkar, Jeyanthi Ghatraju,  Kalpana Balachundhar,  Karishma Reddy, Maithreyi Shankar,  Mansi Danke,  Meenu Rajendraprasad,  Neha Pillai,  Nikita Minocha,  Niveda Baskaran,  Nivedha Kumar,  Prerna Patil,  Priya Girish,  Ranjani Saigal,  Richa Singh,  Roshni Narasimhan,  Sailaja Chaudhary Tummala,  Sandhya Reddy,  Sapna Krishnan,  Sheethal Dwaraka,  Subha Kannath,  Sujatha Meyyappan, Susmitha Saripalli,  Susruthi Rajanala,  Thanuja Meenakshinathan,  Vyju Prasad

Vision-Aid Team in full swing

Mr. Subu Kota, Chairman of the Boston Group, will grace the occasion as Chief Guest and Mr. Puran Dang, Chairman of the MinuteMan Group and Chair of the Vision-Aid Advisory Board, will launch the event.

The Vision-Aid team comprising  Sandesh Bhat, Anu Chitrapu, Charu Datar, Paramesh Garimella, Supriya Lagu, Sreemoti Mukerjee-Roy, Ramakrishna Raju, Revathy Ramakrishna, Sudhir Varma, Dr. Shambhavi Venkataraman, Santosh Vempala and Anupam Wali, is hard at work to ensure that this years event continues to raise the bar for their annual events,

Please Join Vision-Aid on July 17th for an evening of epic proportions and support the cause of Vision-Aid, a non-profit organization that empowers the visually challenged with employable skills and tools that help them lead a life of independence and dignity.

More details and tickets are available at: http://www.visionaid.org/event

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