The Dance of BHOPAL

At the beginning of BHOPAL there is a dance to the music of Zahreeli Hawa. Nirupama Vaidhyanathan, the dance choreographer, wanted it to be a broader narrative, not just of the gas leak and its aftermath, but also of normal life before and how a population that was peacefully asleep that winter night awoke to a colorless, odorless killer gas.

The depiction of this in dance is a master class in dance theatre, by Nirupama. Not to be missed.

Nirupama Vaidhyanathan is a multifaceted artist - dancer, writer, storyteller, and educator. She has performed Bharatanatyam worldwide to critical acclaim. She teaches the next generation of dancers to pursue excellence through the Sankalpa School of dance, an institution she founded. She has researched and presented three dance theater productions on the river Kaveri, a biography of the language Tamizh, and a performing arts adaptation of a book by Shoba Narayan titled ‘Food and Faith.” She is the former editor of India Currents magazine, and has received several writing awards from the San Francisco Press Club. She frequently speaks on Hinduism and Indian performing arts. She holds a Masters degree in Communication from the Annenberg School, University of Pennsylvania.