Srishti-The creation

Austin was entertained by the group Srishti-The creation on Sunday afternoon. It was a combination of classical and contemporary dance program organized by our own Asha of Austin. The dance was performed by six artists, each of them performed so well it was impossible to pick your favorite. Their facial expressions, the music, the colorful dress they wore, the dance and the co-ordination between the artists when all of them were on the stage was a true treat to all the senses. For a $15 ticket they entertained us way more than my wildest imagination. The second half of the show where they performed the Krishna-Bhaktimala, I can't put words to do justice to their performance. We all were (most of us) entertained for over 2 hours. It was truly a delightful, vibrant and great performance.

The dance was great but the attendance to the show was dismal, for over 250 odd tickets sold there were less than 50 people including kids, for the vibrant Indian community we boast of in Austin, it was truly a shame on Austin. We Austinites claim to be living in live music capital of the world and we can't make 2hrs of time to visit on a Sunday afternoon to attend a live dance show.

 

First of all don't we have faith in the US consulate that they would give visa to deserving artists and only great ones can tour the country?. For sake of argument, let’s say we don't believe, next in line are our friends in Asha, don't we have faith in them. Haven't we witnessed their earlier programs and enjoyed them.

 

Coming to the people who would say we bought tickets for charity, you donate money for charity and you buy tickets because you want to attend the event, you want to honor the artist. Yesterday the artists gave beyond their 100% and we in the audience should have done at the least 50% effort and showed up to the event. If it were on a weekday or the traffic in the city sucked then it would have been acceptable, but folks we live in Austin and on a Sunday afternoon around 3:30PM possibility of a traffic problem is highly unlikely.

Last but the craziest excuse will be, "it was first week of NFL", folks the DVR’s and TiVo's aren't just for soaps they can record these also.

The icing on the cake was when some one supposedly mentioned "you could have gotten better artists", again I am lost for words to reply to that person.

In the end, it was a memorable evening spent and truly a shame on Austin Indian community for not showing up in numbers to encourage the artists. If Rajima were there she would have said "this is true poverty".