Menaka PP Bora at Oxford Literary Festival

Abdul Gani

Guwahati, March 15: Renowned classical dancer and choreographer of the state Menaka PP Bora has been selected by University of Oxford to present a lecture-performance entitled ‘Dance, Gestures and Manuscripts’ at the prestigious The Sunday Times Oxford Literary Festival.

The Oxford ethnomusicologist and award-winning dance artist Menaka PP Bora will be presenting an innovative lecture-performance drawn from academic research on Bodleian Sanskrit manuscripts, including a rare 16th-century version of 'Srihastamuktavali' text and classical performance traditions of India on March 25.

Some examples of the Sanskrit manuscript collection will also be on display to accompany the lecture-performance.

While, reputed Indian author Vikram Seth will present the Oxford University Chancellor's lecture at the festival.

The annual festival takes place in some of the most historic colleges of Oxford University and reflects the great traditions of scholarship, research and discourse that have distinguished Oxford in so many fields over the centuries.

This year the festival has invited selected world class authors and public speakers from around the world to discuss literatures and cultures of the global community.

Menaka’s research paper, ‘Srihastamuktavali and Dance: A contemporary study of a 16^th century Sanskrit manuscript on gestures’ will be published by The Bodleian Library Record, a peer-reviewed academic journal published by Oxford University Press.

Besides, she has been elected a Fellow of the highly prestigious Royal Asiatic Society in London. Bora is currently conducting ethnomusicological research of Assamese classical performance traditions as a Wingate Scholar-Artiste at Faculty of Music, University of Oxford after winning Wingate Scholarships in the UK and national Sangeet Natak Akademi Yuva Puraskar in Sattriya dance.

Menaka is one the very few artistes who have successfully combined academic research with practice based dance research to develop a contemporary global language of Indian classical performing arts.

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