Sonali Achrjee makes Guinness World Record in Dance

A dancer from Assam has found a place in the prestigious Guinness World records making the entire community and country proud. Sonali Achrjee achieved the glory performing Rabindra dance for a mammoth 25 hours and 25 minutes.

Sonali created the record, which was never attempted before in this category. She hails from Hailakandi district of Assam. Along with 125 other artists, she performed four dance ballets and 150 musical compositions of Rabindranath Tagore.

The entire dance was choreographed and presented by Sonali to mark Bengal's Renaissance man's 150th birth anniversary. The event had been held at Rabindra Bharathi, Hyderabad, on February 1 and 2.

However, it was not an easy task for her to achieve the pinnacle. She has sold her gold ornaments to raise the money for the dance festival event titled "Rabindra Nrityotsav" to pay her tribute to Tagore. The event was organised by Sonali Academy of Fine Arts, in collaboration with the Government of Andhra Pradesh, South Zone Cultural Centre, Thanjore and South-Central Zone Cultural Centre, Nagpur.

She took 8-9 months for preparation for the event and approached other artists from northeastern states, France, Japan, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. The artists had taken only 18 seconds break to change their costumes.

Being impressed by her performance, an official from the Guinness Records, who is also a member of the London Olympics Committee, invited her to perform and showcase her skills at this year's summer Olympics, which will be held in London.

Sonali broke the previous record, which was created by MTV for the longest dance performance of 24 hours and one minute.