Evening of Dance and Music

Talented dancers and gifted singers from Atlanta presented a scintillating Evening of Dance and Music to regale a packed house audience at the Riverdale Temple Auditorium on Sunday, the 7th June. The show was directed and choreographed by Divya Srivastava, dancer, choreographer and instructor at NNKB and was corroborated by Shaam-E-Sargam group of Music, founded and organized by Navin Tyagi.


Divya, apart from being trained in Kathak, the North Indian style of classical dancing, is well versed with today’s

Divya Srivastava

rapidly gaining popularity Bollywood style of dancing. Over more than forty students of ages ranging from 5 to 25 years showcased their talent to entertain the audience. The Evening was emceed by multitalented Anita Gupta who also surprised the audience with her mellifluous voice and was co emceed by Navin tyagi.


The program commenced with a 80s hit song ‘Pag ghunghroo bandh’ sung by Pankaj Bhargava, well known for replicating Kishore Kumar’s voice and yodeling. The two hour long show was an immaculate presentation based on the theme ‘Love’. All the dances and songs portrayed different facets of love including - ‘Des Rangila’ – the love for country, ‘Barso Re’ love for nature and ‘Mahia’ love for someone special in one’s life. The various thematic dances were exquisitely presented by young girls in their pleasing pink costumes. The highlights were the Bollywood sizzling number ‘Love mera hit hit’ a high energy dance performed by Rahim Hussain’s group and ‘Mere khwabo me jo aaye’ sung by Namrata Dewan.


What made this show unique was the skillful blending of dances and Karoake singing, woven around the theme ’love’. The entire show held the audience spellbound, from start to the grand finale ‘Dhadhak dhadhak’ – a song from ‘Bunty & Bubly’ sung by Pankaj and Anita and performed by all the students.


“We enjoyed it so much, it made us tap our feet on floor” said Arpana Kannu one of the parents, “Very entertaining and vivid” added another parent Rohini Jella. The most popular item of the evening’s show was the mesmerizing solo performance by Divya on the classical medley of old time classic ‘Mughal-E-Azam’ and ‘Devdas’. The lovely dancer bewitched the audience by her graceful moves, facial expressions and reverberating sound of ‘Ghunghrus’. The spicy number ‘Namak Isk ka’ performed by Divya and her senior students Ekta Gaur and Nidhi Jain, in a semi classical choreography elicited a huge applause. Duet ‘Phir bhi dil hai hindustani’ sung by Pankaj and Navin was close to the heart of every Indian present in the auditorium. Other performances included a surprise solo dance by 9-year old Geet Bhargava on the karaoke singing of his singer father Pankaj Bhargava. Backstage coordination was adroitly done by Prashanthi Jella and Nida Shariff.

For more information dancewithdivya@rocketmail.com