India Dance Festival will present several fine dance performances by some of the leading artists featuring Kathak styles. Kathak, the dance style from north India has the charm and subtlety associated with miniature paintings. Nurtured in the holy precincts of the Hindu temples Kathak was further enhanced with Persian influence during the Mogul reign in India. Kathak is one of the eight forms of Indian classical dance. This dance form traces its origins to the nomadic bards of ancient northern India, known as Kathakars or storytellers. Its form today contains traces of temple and ritual dances, and the influence of the bhakti movement. From the 16th century onwards it absorbed certain features of Persian dance and Central Asian dance which were imported by the royal courts of the Mughal era. There are three major schools or gharana of Kathak from which performers today generally draw their lineage: the gharanas of Jaipur, Lucknow and Varanasi; there is also a less prominent Raigarh gharana which amalgamated technique from all three preceding gharanas but became famous for its own distinctive compositions.