Kalaangan Key Issues and
Operational Areas, Major Activiities & Achivements
Operational Districts: Mumbai, Mumbai Suburban
Operational States: MAHARASHTRA
AchieveMents: Kalaangan is the labour of love of its founder Guru Moli Siddharth. From its humble beginning in the small North Eastern state of Agartala, it now has now expanded to the suburbs of Mumbai. It coaches around 120 students every year in the dance forms of Kathak and Rabindra Nritya primarily.
Kalaangan offers undergraduate and post graduate diplomas in both Kathak and Rabindra Nritya for its students through the Akhil Bharatiya Gandharva Mahavidyalaya, Bangiya Sangeet Parishad and Pracheen Kala Kendra, Chandigarh. In addition, through the Kalaangan annual programmes and various other shows conceived and choreographed by Guruji students also get a flavour of other dance forms like Odissi, Manipuri and Bharat Natyam. Students also learn about the stalwarts of different dance forms, significance of old dance treatises like Natya Shastra. Kalaangan also encourages its senior students to spread their wings and teach under the guidance of Guruji.
For the last two years Kalaangan has been organising an all India dance festival called ââ¬ËNazaaqatââ¬â¢ in the memory of Guru Smt Moli Siddharthââ¬â¢s Guru Late Padmashree Smt. Damayanti Joshi. This festival aims to bring together all the dancers of the different Gharanas of Kathak to keep the grace and beauty of this ancient art form alive. Kalaangan also begun a series of Kathak workshops under the name ââ¬ËParamparaââ¬â¢. This workshop attempts to provide the students of Kalaangan and other students learning Kathak an opportunity for learning from some of the stalwart teachers of this dance form giving them a much more rounded experience. Guru Smt Moli Siddharthââ¬â¢s dream is to take the concept of dance as a form of expression and as a method of overall personal development and confidence building technique for the marginalized children in our neighborhoods. With this aim in mind, she, along with her senior students , has started classes for the children of the domestic help, construction workers and other daily wage workers around her teaching Kathak and communication skills in English so that they can create a place for themselves in the society. This inititiative is called Prayaas.
Kalaanagan and its senior students have performed in India in Mumbai, Delhi, Kolkata, Bhopal and Nagpur amongst the places. It recenty performed as an invitee of the India Tourism Board of Paris in the IViagitorri , a travel and tourism based exposition in Lugano, Switzerland.
