KATHMANDU: Somebody rightly said, “You can dance anywhere, even if only in your heart.”

To mark ‘International Dance Day’, wherein different countries of the world celebrate this day dancing and performing their own forms of dances, Nepal Music Centre (NMC) organised a Gala Dance event with performance by various Nepali artistes on April 29. The event started with a speech about Bhairav Bahadur Thapa, a dance scholar and a legend of Nepal.

Nepali artistes performed the Manjushree dance, Sherpa dance, Hip-hop dance, Chyabrung Dhol dance, Maruni dance, Newari dance, Fusion (Salsa and Hip-hop) dance, Jhyaure dance and semi-classical dance in the event, which provided audience joy and fun for almost two hours. All the dances were well choreographed.

Cultural expert Satya Mohan Joshi made remarks on the current situation of the Nepali dance culture. “Many of us don’t know the origin and different forms of dance of Nepal. We need to come hand in hand to prepare a candidature of any one important form of dance culture. Candidature should be brought into account of UNESCO so that they can check and balance the prospect in order to mark and recognise proposed dance form as a ‘masterpiece’ in the international arena,” he said.

Thapa also shared some words on how we should go about trying to save our dance culture. “We need to have an institution like NMC which promotes and tries to safeguard our typical form of dance culture where teachers or instructors should not only teach how to dance but also what it means to dance.”

He added, “Dance for the sake of dancing carries no weight at all.”

When you run out of words to express, just dance because dancing is one form of art that expresses your feelings and shares the ups and downs of your life with your body language. Santosh Sharma, Chairman of NMC, shared, “It speaks the language of every heart.”

Philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche once said, “Dancing in all its forms cannot be excluded from the curriculum of all noble education.”

With the same viewpoint Sharma said, “In order to preserve our folk dance culture from extinction, we need a systematic and well-managed dance schools.”

The programme concluded following the catchphrase of the event ‘Everyone can dance’ where all participants, guests and audience enjoyed a group dance to one of the most famous Nepali songs Bajho Khet Ma.