President's daughter Sharmistha performs in Tripura

Agartala, May 10 (IANS) President Pranab Mukherjee's daughter and Kathak dancer Sharmistha Mukherjee's "Rainstorm and Autumn Leaves" dance-drama based on poems by Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore and P.B. Shelley enthralled people here.

Seven dancers led by Sharmistha presented the 65-minute dance-drama Friday night. It was organised to celebrate Tagore's 154th birth anniversary and inauguration of a 1,700-seater reconstructed Rabindra Satabarshiki Bhavan.

"This is an experimental and research oriented staging," said Sharmistha, whose dance-drama was based on Tagore's "Borsho Shesh", inspired by Shelley's "Ode to the West Wind" as part of a 15-day cultural festival.

Tripura Chief Minister Manik Sarkar Friday inaugurated the Rabindra Satabarshiki Bhavan and the cultural festival.

Sharmistha told IANS: "The 'Rainstorm and Autumn Leaves' is an attempt to bring together diverse elements, poems of two world famous poets from the East and the West in two different languages and two completely different genres of music - Rabindra Sangeet and Western Classical music containing excerpts of Antonio Vivaldi's 'Four Seasons'."

Over 1,000 artists, singers, dancers from Delhi, West Bengal, Assam, Tripura, and Bangladesh will perform during the festival, which will continue till May 23.