New Delhi

The winners of Vande Bhartam, Nritya Utsav Grand Finale are gearing up to enthral the audiences at the 2022 Republic Day parade scheduled to be held at Rajpath, New Delhi on 26 January, informed the Ministry of Culture on Wednesday.

As per the ministry, the rehearsals for the grand performance have been taking place with full enthusiasm at Rajpath and Indira Gandhi Indoor Stadium, New Delhi.

According to the ministry, the winners are being trained by the four renowned choreographers. These include Kathak Dancer Rani Khanam, along with Maiyetree Pahari, Tejaswini Sathe, and Santosh Nair who are giving training to 36 teams who have come from different states, said the ministry.

The ministry further stated that the 480 performers have been selected by the Ministry of Culture through a four-level Vande Bharatam-Nritya Utsav competition. The Grand Finale of the Vande Bharatam-Nritya Utsav, a part of Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav was held in New Delhi on 19 December 2021.

As per the ministry, the Vande Bharatam competition began at the district level on November 17 and saw the participation of more than 3,870 contestants in 323 groups. Those who cleared the screening at the district level took part in the state-level competition from November 30, 2021.

More than 20 virtual events were conducted for the state-level competition over a span of 5 days till 4 December 2021, stated the ministry. Over 2,400 participants from 200 plus teams were short-listed for the zonal level competition. The zonal finals took place at Kolkata, Mumbai, Bengaluru, and Delhi from 9 to 12 of December where 104 groups displayed their dance prowess. Participating groups performed specially choreographed acts in various dance categories like classical, folk, tribal, and fusion.

They will now give a performance on Republic Day where all the groups will merge into a one whole, yet retaining the identity of individual dance forms, in the true spirit of Ek Bharat Shrestha Bharat. Of these 104 groups,73 groups comprising 949 dancers from all 4 zones made it to the Grand Finale, which was held in Delhi at the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium Auditorium on 19 December.

Top 480 dancers were declared as winners from the Grand Finale and they will perform on the Republic Day Parade to be held at Rajpath, New Delhi on 26 January 2022.

This is the first time that teams are selected for Republic Day Performance at Rajpath through an All India dance competition with the aim of enhancing Jan Bhagidari.