Check out the photo album - Courtsey Amaresan!

The Saptaswar music group under the direction of Mohan Somasundaram in collaboration with the Ekal Vidyalaya foundation presented a spectacular evening of entertainment featuring dance creations by many of the local choreographers and music by the Saptaswar group. The funds raised at the event are being  used to support the Ekal Vidyalayas which  are bringing much needed education to remote areas in India. The program was made special   by adding a fabulous stage setting created specially by Shobha Shastry of Alankar decors along with state of the art lighting created by New England Stage Works to provide a very professional ambiance. The event titled Diwali 2009 was held at the Marlborough Middle School on Saturday  Nov 21.

Over 180 participants and 30 volunteers helped create this event which  drew a crowd of nearly 800 guests in the auditorium. This audio-video extravaganza music & dance entertainment show was supported with Bollywood style video clips on two large screens - both sides of the stage. Program director Swathi Subramanain also served as the host for the evening.Extravagant Jaipur Palace type embellishments in the auditorium, cafeteria decorations and hallway ambiance was arranged by Shobha Shastry of Alankar Decorations

Choreographers Jasmine Shah, Ranjani Saigal, Bharati Biswas, Mitali Biswas, Darshana Jani, Lehrein Group (Netra Rajinikanth, Sunita Malhotra, Teja Nadkarni) and  Reshma Singh presented a slew of semi classical and bollywood dance numbers featuring performers raging in age from 5 to 60. In addition the groups The Melting Pot and Boston Bhangara made presentations. Manasa Lakshmi of the Move on Wheels Dance Studio brought an unusual touch to the event by performing Skaterpsichore (Ska-terp-C-kurr) – a dance on roller skates.

Saptaswar as usual delighted the audience with their wonderful presentations.The presented golden oldies form the 60s & 70s era (Chaand Phir Nikhla, Suhani Raat, Yaad Kiya Dil, Ye Raaten Ye Mausam, etc.) in two separate segments, accompanied with video clips from those nostalgic movies. Saptaswar Musicians, Christy Mathew (Keyboard), Hiral Parikh (Drums) & Harshal Tole(Tabla and vocal) along with Vocalists Sudha Rao, Raghu Saranathan, Krithika Jeyaraman and Rahul Bharadwaj picked many familiar tunes that had the audience singing along.

The choreographers and participants were honored with the presentation of exquisite trophies specially designed for the occasion. These were presented by the chief guests Mr. Hemant Gupta & Mrs. Nalini Gupta of California.

This event was made possible through the generosity of the sponsors, Axygen Inc., Alankar Event Planners & Decorators, eClinicalWorks, Shrewsbery Federal Credit Union &  Minerva Indian Cuisine.
The event publicity was done by  Patel Brothers.

After the program, Mr, Mahesh Navani and Mr. Girish Navani of eClinicalWorks were so happy with theevent, they offered future support for such program. They also generously offered their support for five Ekal Vidyalaya schools.

 
The event's success was due to the hardwork put in by a dedicated team of volunteers.  Rishi, Ashwini, Mridhu, Jaya, Sravan, Sameer, Vaibhav, Atul, Smita, Shefali, Kunal G., Dilip, Rajay, Kavitha, Anit, Vinay, Amit, Pratha, Dhavan, Shashank T., Anu, Mihir, Shashank M., Himani, Kunal C., Manish, Sanjay, Rakesh, Rekha and Swetha genrously donated their time. Swathi Subramanian deserves special credit for spending countless hours in ensuring the smooth flow of the program.

" Thanks to the hard work put in by so many , the event turned out to be a great success" said Dr. Anil Chawla who came up with the concept of such a high quality event to support Ekal Vidyalaya.  This was the second year for a presentation of this nature and we look forward to more in the future.

To learn more about Ekal , please check out their website at
http://ekal.org

|