as far as dance festivals in the city go there are at least a couple or during the season a handful that are organized every other month for dancers who organise them a dance festival requires a different kind of zealousness from conceptualizing the theme to the curatorial aspect that involves getting the best dancers to getting sponsors and ensuring the word gets out the work is cut out for themwhen he sat down to curate the dance festival platform that begins on september 14 masoom parmar decided to rejig the clichd formulae associated with dance festivals in the country so for starters the festival features performances by only upandcoming dancers most festivals only want to star famous dancers and youngsters dont get a chance to showcase their work when i started learning dance i remember us young kids being offered morning or afternoon slots which would have no audiences that is why we decided that platform will be dedicated to young performers the dancers for our first edition are aged 30 years and less says parmar to be held over the next three weekends the festival each day will feature two performers from different dance disciplines most dance festivals only focus on one dance form here ive tried to pair two diametrically different forms together he says the first evening for instance brings together contemporary dance by seher noor mehra with odissi by meghna daskuchipudi danseuse vyjayanthi kashi holds three dance festivals every year namely dance jathre moolam and nayika and each festival has its own concept dance jathre is a dance festival that we do that is open to the general public the idea of the festival is to get everyone to dance last year for instance we had a 70yearold woman who took part in our dance workshops moolam is a festival i organised to educate youngsters about the guru shishya parampara tradition that is uniquely indian i want to show youngsters how our dancing legends learnt to dance and nayika is a festival that highlights women kuchipudi dancers because for long it was a dance form that was maledominated kashi who has been a dancer for over three decades has seen a few changes in the classical dance festival scene there are more festivals today than before and grants from the government have increased over the years she says commenting about the positives but then there is a question of whether there is quality dancing happening says kashi earlier when you held a festival you had celebrity dancers as the highlight and so you knew that you would get to see incredible performances on stage but today even relatively less known dancers hold dance fests whats more they call it an international dance festival with barely two international artistes taking part kashi rues odissi exponent madhulita mohapatra has been organising naman a festival dedicated to odissi for the past decade the 10thanniversary performance a retelling of the love story mirzasaheba drew a full house we had