"Abhilekh"
Online Archival Heritage Project
“Abhilekh” is an Indian Sanskrit word for “Archive”. In celebration of 35 years of Centre for Indian Classsical Dance and UK-India 70 Years of Culture we have been creating our own Abhilekh supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund. Over the years, CICD collected a vast amount of video, photographic, costume, publicity and media materials which are finally going to be easily accessible for a wider public interested and fascinated by the South Asian dance.
It is an extensive record of our exciting pioneering dance productions presented at various professional venues. We have had so many talented groups of young people coming through our doors training in Kathak storytelling. We have also worked with various community groups in Leicester and East Midlands promoting Indian Classical Dance. CICD had various visiting professional dancers from India and UK and had collaborated with Nilima Devi on dance projects. She has also performed numerous beautiful solo works.
“Abhilekh” also represents unique public and private partnership of working with Leicester City and County Councils and CICD.
“Abhilekh” is a great resource for researchers and dancers to find out more about Indian dance and the development of South Asian Dance in Leicester and the East Midlands region. Nilima Devi MBE and CICD and as an organisation has been teaching and promoting the roots and culture surrounding the Art form since CICD started in 1981.
As well as being available digitally online all the physical artefacts are stored at Leicestershire Leicester and Rutland's Record Office.
“Abhilekh” includes:
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Video archive: 30 hrs worth of videos of CICD work dating back to 1980s and some of our oldest performances. We have digitized all of our old footage and it is now all available on our Youtube channel (@CICDUK) and CICD website (www.cicd.org.uk)
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Photographic archive: CICD’s history documented through various photographs of projects, workshops, residencies, community and school work, and much more.
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Publicity and media archive: CICD’s is sharing its publicity posters and media coverage dating back to its opening in 1981.
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Costume archive: a library of professional photographs of our beautiful costumes from our dance productions over the years, modeled by past and present CICD dancers.
To get a glimpse, watch the “Abhilekh” highlights video with CICD’s artistic director Nilima Devi MBE which is available on CICD’s official Facebook page and Youtube channel (@CICDUK)
Online Archival Heritage project “Abhilekh” saw a great support from Leicester Museum services and the volunteers who worked on organizing and archiving the extensive materials from CICD’s 35 years of history.
Many thanks to all CICD volunteers and especially to Aiste Fedotovaite, Yordan Nikolov and Krupa Patel for their hard work on the project.
This project should not be possible without the invaluable knowledge and support of CICD’s artistic director Nilima Devi MBE.
Partnership between public (city and county) and private (CICD) sectors have helped Indian Dance to develop at various levels and to put Leicester on the cultural map of South Asian Dance in the UK.