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CALENDAR  15th Annual Festival Of India Sept.15th BY CARU DAS CALENDAR, Sep 15 (VNN) — Utah Valley's KHQN Radio and Krishna Temple, located on South Main St. in Spanish Fork, will host the 15th Annual Festival of India on Saturday, September 15th from 4 pm. The newly opened Krishna Temple provides an expanded festival site and facilites for the popular event. After 14 increasingly successful editions of the India Fest, few people in Utah County are ignorant of the fact that, once a year, you can go to India without spending a lot of money. You can have India right in the middle, of all places, ... Spanish Fork! Over 4,000 people attended last year's celebration, and India Fest 2001 could be the biggest one yet, thanks to the enthusiastic increase of promotional efforts on the part of the organizers, the majestic, overlooking presence of the Krishna temple at the festival site, and a natural amphitheatre which can accomodate thousands. Underneath multicolored Indian wedding tents, the ten acre festival site will feature world class entertainment, cuisine, a gift shop, art, photography, and cultural exhibits on India. Delicious hot four course meals of Indian curry with home made cheese (paneer), blueberry hallava, spicy Bengali rice, and giant lentil chips (papadams) will be served throughout the evening. There will be Indian drinks such as Peach lassi, and Nimbu pani, as well as sweets and pizza for the less adventurous. Everyone is invited to enjoy this unique and exotic event, which has been growing in public attendance year after year. Admission is $2.00 person/$1.00 children. For more information, contact Charu or Vai at (801)798-3559/787-1510 Schedule of Stage entertainment 4:30 pm Vishal Ailawadhi, brilliant young classical and popular Indian vocalist from Torrance, Cal. Plays harmonium and tabla accompaniment by Hemant Ekbote.. 5:30 pm Aloke Dasgupta on sitar and Sashanka Bakshi, tablas. Aloke is among the most outstanding and original sitar players in the North Indian classical style. With a maturity of compostion all his own, he has won the hearts of critics and audiences worldwide. Debashish Bannerji, critic:Times of India. 6:30 pm, Anjani Ambegoaker, teacher, with students: Sohini Sengupta, Aparna Singh, & Vibha Jain. Kathak dance presentation. Los Angeles Times ÔKathak Troupe Presents Tales of Classical Indian Splendor' Country music has the Judds, opera has Montserrats Caballe and Marti: and kathak, a classical dance form of Northern India, has, in the Southland, the Ambegaokers-Anjani and Amrapali-a mother-daughter team that is helping to keep the elegant Moghul court dance alive and well. Anjani's kathak dance of India, made up of the Ambegoakers and four other dancers, presented a hyper exuberant show of song, dance, and music Saturday at El Camino College.... You had to know something about kathak, a classical dance form of Northern India, to know why Anjani Ambegaoker jokingly prayed for the help of any mathematicians Saturday night. But you didn't have to understand complex counts of the flashy percussive footwork to appreciate it. Although kathak performers are fond of trying to explain the dance's byzantine numerical formulae, sometimes-as with rapid footwork of tap or flamenco-it's better just to sit back and be amazed. There was so much to hear and see: the quick, dense slaps of bare-footed dancers whose torsos remained elegantly still as they shifted slightly from side-to-side, bright jangling of so many tiny bells circling their ankles, and the pop-pop thrumming of the tabla. As founder of Anjani's Kathak dance of India, the veteran Anjani took on the extended solo storytelling passages which traditionally accompany pure dance. In Karna Janma taken from the epic ÔMahabharata', she mimed a mother who must part from her new-born son, transforming what might be melodramatic gestures elsewhere into heartfelt grief.... In ten dances, the troupe, in colorful silk costumes, negotiated difficult beats effortlessly, sometimes improvising and vamping, creating a wall of sound with their stamping feet and a vision of startling grace with their arms. Anjani is not only a commanding dancer but a fine teacher as well, as her company-who, no doubt, could have kathaked all night-showed. 7:30 pm: Main event, Pageant of the Ramayana, spectacular burning of Ravana after dark with flaming arrows and fireworks. All entertainment made possible in part by a grant from the Utah Arts Council & The National Endowment for the Arts Visit our web site at http://www.iskcon.net/utah. Best wishes, Caru das and Vaibhavi  Comment on this storyContact VNN about this storySend this story to a friend
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