It invites all bright and talented dancers to participate and its purpose is to promote and popularize dance culture in India. The School of Russian Classical Ballet headed by Galina Lyakhova has organized the 1st International Children’s Ballet competition “Mosaic of Dance-2016" which was held on October 14th - 15th, 2016, in Indian International Center C.D.Deshmukh Auditorium, New Delhi. The eli
gible age for participation in the “Mosaic of Dance-2016” competition was 6 to 21 years. The competition included 3 categories: Classical Ballet, Modern Ballet and Contemporary. The School of Russian Classical Ballet has sent invitations to all major ballet and dance schools across Delhi and NCR to encourage their students to participate in this one of its kind event. We believe that events like this help to raise awareness about dance overall and ballet in particular, and bring the overall level of dance education in India to a higher scale. The competition was judged by professional jury. The Head of the jury was the renowned Kathak dancer Nrityashri Alaknanda, who is the Founder, Director, and Kathak Guru at Alaknanda Institute of Performing Arts (AIPA), the biggest professional performing arts academy in the National Capital Region. The other jury members were:
Himani Khurana - choreographer, dance artist and educator. Artistic Director and Founder of the dance company Stance Dance Studio, her works are based on Jazz, Modern, urban and contemporary dance techniques. Anna Voitsekhovich, Folk & classical dancer, choreographer, cultural projects manager, she is an alumni and former soloist of the famous and oldest V.Loktev Song And Dance Ensemble. Elena Gorejko, Rhythmic Gymnastic coach and choreographer, International Fitness Master Instructor and Presenter, she is an Olympic level gymnast, she used to work as a coach and choreographer/director for Belarus National Gymnastic Acrobatic Team and Junior Olympic School of Rhythmic Gymnastics at Brest, Belarus. Pankaj Guglani, Assistant Artistic Director, the Danceworx. The festival was received with great enthusiasm by children and audience. For some of the contestants it was the way to show their talent and for some children it was the opportunity to come on stage to perform solo and to overcome their fear of stage. Some children were already experienced with stage performances and for some it was the first stage performance ever! Big cheers for all our contestants! It takes great courage to participate in a competition judged by professional judges and they all are winners in our eyes because they all share common passion - the passion for dance! The Festival was organized by Galina Lyakhova, the qualified and highly skilled ballet teacher and choreographer, with over 17 years of experience in teaching ballet to children in India. She taught at Russian Cultural Centre for 15 years and she was the one who made their ballet school famous across India for their high-quality ballet education. She staged such shows as “Chippolino”, “Midsummer Night's Dream”, “The Toy Shop”, “The Snow Queen”, “The Scarlet Flower” and many more. 2 years back, Galina opened her own ballet studio at Lajpat Nagar, and she continues to set high standards in ballet education in India. She wants more dance events like this ballet competition to happen as they promote growth and increase people's knowledge about this beautiful art of Ballet! The Children’s Dance Festival “Mosaic of dance” is all set to return next year for its 2nd edition – bigger and better! Next time it will be All-India Festival and we invite young and talented dancers from all over India to participate, to show their talent and to win prizes! We will also add more dance styles to make the festival more vibrant and colorful – next year we invite not only Ballet and Contemporary dancers, but also Folk and Indian Classical dancers to participate in our competition and make our dance festival a true “Mosaic of dance”!
