IAA Hosts Niche Entertainment’s ‘Dil Se’: Superlative Singing & Dancing

By Jyoti Kulkarni

HOUSTON: The musical genius of composer A.R. Rahman was on display through a superlative audio-visual and live performance by Niche Entertainment of Pune. Niche has presented a series of such unique performances for over a decade, including “Bhairav to Bahiravi”, “Black and White” and “Prabhat to Sairat”.

Niche Entertainment is currently on a 14-city USA tour with the “Dil Se …” show. Indo-American Association of Houston was the national sponsor of the entire USA tour. The Houston show took place last Friday, June 2 at the Stafford Civic Centre on Cash Road. After the Houston show, the troupe had four more to go.

IAA Board of Directors member Radhika Day came on stage and announced a discounted ticket package for IAA  patrons for upcoming performances of Mika Singh and theatrical production of ‘Mughal-e-Azam’. Day also urged the audience to purchase event tickets directly from IAA rather  than third-party ticket sellers.
“Dil Se …” is directed by Milind Oak. The performance script was written by Ashay Walamb with Nachiket Devasthali as the narrator. The singers are Abhilasha Chellam, Ashutosh Joshi, Deepika Datar and Abhishek Telang. The dancers were Kunal Phadke, Abhishek Havaragi, Rutuja Ingle, and Riya Desai.

The show traced Rahman’s life and his musical growth. The presentation also focused on his close relationship with Director Mani Ratnam and his appearance on the international scene through the composition of “Jai Ho” for ‘Slumdog Millionaire’ and Shekhar Kapur’s ‘Bombay Dreams’.

At the conclusion of the Houston show, Director Milind Oak came on stage to reveal that Niche Entertainment will be working on a new show about the remarkable career of India’s nightingale — Lata Mangeshkar.