This session will be led by Uttara Coorlawala.
Excerpts from two new films on Indian dance's recent past: "I am Satyabhama" & "O friend this waiting" followed by a discussion of their contemporary relevance and context by Professor Davesh Soneji, of McGill University, distinguished author of Unfinished Gestures, Devadasis, Memory and Modernity in South India.

We will also hear about the work of the Dance Heritage Coalition in Washington D.C.
  "I am Satyabhama" starts with the life and performances of the legendary performer of female roles in Kuchipudi, Padmashri Vedantam Satyanarayana Sarma, and includes archival footage of his performances.  This project to recover a lost past leads filmmaker Dulam Satyanarayana to the village of Kuchipudi where this dance form was developed and sustained since the thirteenth century.
 
  O Friend, This Waiting by Bharatanatyam dancer (and pianist) Justin McCarthy and filmmaker Sandhya Kumar on Kshetrayya Padams, the most treasured love songs of the dancing devadasis who rose to prominence in the courts of the 17th century Nayaka rulers. O Friend, This Waiting is a creative re-envisioning of absence and presence as it revisits all the elements that we now understand as our inheritage from those Telugu courts.