 Praveen
Kumar from Bangalore gave a refined recital for Narada Gana Sabha on
Dec 15. After the invocation item, he performed a special Varnam "Ennai
marandanalo" in ragam Abhogi and talam adhi, specially written, composed
and choreographed by his guru C V Chandrashekar. Since it was in Tamil,
it was easy to understand the lyrics, sung very clearly by vocalist Srivatsa,
accompanied now and then by guru Chandrashekar himself, who did the nattuvangam.
In this rare Varnam, the basic theme is of a nayaka pining for his beloved.
Generally, for male dancers the choices are limited, as they have to stick
to bhakti items. But here, it was based on one of the shringara aspects.
Usually a nayika is depicted as pining for union with the Lord, but CV
Chandrashekar thought it was not aesthetic to have a counter example of
the hero pining. So, he chose the theme of a young man thinking with nostalgia
about his childhood friend. The hero is struck by Cupid's arrows
and wonders as to how his beloved girl has forgotten him. "Has she forgotten
those good moments we spent right from childhood?!" His restrained abhinaya
as he pines for her and elegant, precise footwork were highly appreciated
by the audience comprised of prominent Bharatantayam gurus and many dance
students.
Another enchanting
item was the devaranama, "Maneyolagado Govinda" composed by saint Purandaradasa.
Here the vatsalya bhava was portrayed from a father's perspective. Krishna's
father wonders why his son has to go to the neighbour's house to play and
in turn be titled as the prankster of the gokula. After all, he is said
to be Narayana himself, is it not? Many present felt that these two items
were so captivating that Praveen should present them at other venues too.
He concluded with a melodious Thillana (Simhendra madhyamam) marked by
impeccable footwork. At a time when very few male dancers are performing
solo, Praveen Kumar is one to watch out for!
A chance visit
to the Iyappa temple in Mahalingapuram that evening and there was a Mohiniattam
recital by Kochi based Shyamala Surendran and her students, as part
of the Makaravillaku Mahotsavam. I had time to watch 3 items, the Vinayaka
Sthuthi, followed by a solo item by Shyamala for the beautifully sung ashtapadi
"Yahi Madhava yahi Keshava." The popular Pandhaattam was a group item.
Looking at the audience who watched the show with rapt attention, I thought
there were more people here than in regular auditoriums!
Malavika
Sarukkai presented 'Kasi Yatra, the journey of a courtesan of Benaras'
at Narada Gana Sabha on Dec 21. The program is about a woman of taste,
her journey in a male dominated world as a courtesan, how she bedecks herself
on the banks of the Ganga and ends in her joining the flow of the river
of pilgrims. Somehow, the mood did not communicate to the audience and
it seemed as if the dancer was rather detached.
On Dec 24,
Ananda Shankar Jayant and her troupe from Shankarananada Kalakshetra,
Hyderabad, presented 'Darshanam – an ode to the eye' at Bharatiya Vidya
Bhavan, for Kartik Fine Arts. What started as a brief presentation for
an eye conference in 2005 has been developed into a full length work. Darshanam
explored the myriad hues and shades of depiction of the human eye in Indian
literature. How the Devi felt when she saw Lord Shiva danced to excerpts
from Adi Shankara's Soundaryalahari, poetic descriptions of pretty women
as having beautiful eyes like a fish or doe, Shiva's opening the third
eye to destroy evil, the story of Kannappa who offers his eye to Lord Shiva's
idol that has a damaged eye and finally the visually challenged Surdas
imploring Krishna for a vision of his lotus eyed countenance – these were
all strung into a continuous presentation broken by a brief English narration
between segments by Ananda. The static disturbance from the collar mike
every time she spoke jarred the otherwise smooth presentation. The green
laser light used in a segment gave a rather disco effect. The excellent
orchestra comprised of Venu Madhav on vocal, I V Renuka Prasad on nattuvangam,
T P Balasubramaniam on mridangam, Sai Kumar on violin. "I enjoy performing
in Chennai and every year I bring a production that has not been seen here.
This year, it is Darshanam. I got a good response for my 'Thyagaraja Vaibhavam'
in Krishna Gana Sabha, the Natya Kala Conference also went off well, so
I'm quite happy," said Ananda.
It's now time
to visit the Kalakshetra festival. On Dec 27, the first part of
the program was an Odissi recital by Aruna Mohanty and her troupe
from Bhubaneswar. After Aruna's invocation number on Durga, was a pure
dance item by 6 male dancers, a choreography of guru Gangadhar Pradhan,
that brought alive the sculpture of the Konark temple. Choreographed by
guru Pankaj Charan Das, 'Madhurashtaka' depicted the beauty of Lord Krishna.
Choreographed by Kelucharan Mohapatra, Pallavi was pure dance movements
of lyrical grace. Another item choreographed by Kelucharan Mohapatra was
'Aahey Nila Shaila,' an Oriya song written by Muslim poet Salabeg and set
to music by Raghunath Panigrahi. The final item was 'Srishti and
Pralaya' choreographed by Aruna Mohanty, inspired by the tragedy of the
1999 coastal hurricane and tsunami of 2004 that devastated Orissa. Being
subject to an overdose of Bharatanatyam in Chennai, it was nice to soak
in the soulful music and the lyrical beauty of Odissi by the accomplished
troupe, but they exceeded the time limit by not a few minutes, but a good
half hour.
 Instead
of 7.30pm, the next part of the program commenced at 8pm. With 33 Manipuri
drummers from the Sri Govindaraj Nata Sankirtan from Imphal, Astad Deboo
had recently performed 'Rhythm Divine' at the coronation of the King of
Bhutan – one day on a large football field and the next day on a stage
comprised of 3 levels where excerpts were interspersed with performance
segments of other artistes. Because of budget constraints, he was accompanied
only by 8 dancers for his Kalakshetra presentation. The scene opened with
the 8 dancers lying in a foetal position and in the centre was a strange
shimmering white mound. In near silence and stillness, as the forms go
through their stretching movements like inside a womb till they are released,
the centre mound also expands and through the plastic, one gets tantalizing
glimpses now and then of a shadowy form inside. Something like now you
see him, now you don't!
The soundscape
was quite minimalistic, with an intermittent gong sound or the dancers
themselves clapping or slapping their hands on their bodies to create varied
rhythms – sometimes simulating the playing of drums. In one sequence, the
dancers move hypnotically holding shining cymbals suspended on sashes and
the surprise element was their gentle movements and their using the cymbals
only to punctuate a movement phrase than to make clash, bang noises. Apart
from a couple of brief solos with Astad's trademark controlled movements
and poses of body defying gravity, the group movements were imbued with
varied manifestations of joy, especially the whirling movements sufi style
in which we almost wondered if Astad had forgotten to stop! In the last
segment, the Manipuri dancers bounced on to the stage to perform their
drum dance pung cholom, attired in their traditional costume. The quicksilver
drumming and twirling around the stage while playing their drums, was highly
enjoyed by the audience who could not have enough of it. The dramatic production
ended with Astad (clad in a Manipuri style costume with turban!) crouched
on the centre stage and a figure standing on his back, blowing a conch.
The end. The applause went on and on with none of the audience even getting
up to leave!
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Arohanam
Pics:
Lalitha Venkat
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Prof. CV Chandrashekar
presented students of his institution Nrityasree in 'Arohanam' choreographed
by him and his wife Jaya, at Bharat Kalachar on Dec 28. As a student of
biology in Varanasi combined with his deep interest in nature, he has always
been fascinated by the evolution of life, from mollusks to animals like
turtle, monkeys and lion, to homo sapiens, to enlightened man. With some
additions and omissions, the avatars like matsya, kurma and Narasimha were
depicted not necessarily in order and ended with the Buddha avatar. "For
the first time, we have used recorded music," said Chandrashekar. There
are advantages and disadvantages. In recorded music, one can have any number
of rehearsals, but live music brings in a different feeling for the dancer
and singer." The dancers were Renjith Babu, Sheejith Nambiar, Parvathy
Sheejith, Nitesh, Ashwini Viswanathan, Shafiquddin and Nirmala. The music
accompaniment featured Hari Prasad and Nandini Anand on vocal, Sashidar
on flute, Ananthanarayanan on veena, and percussion by Haribabu. The music
was composed by the guru himself.
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Faces
Pics:
Lalitha Venkat
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On December 30,
Anita Ratnam presented 'Faces,' a presentation of "some of the most
familiar and loved personas from our cultural tapestry," for Kartik Fine
Arts at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan – her only performance of the season. Portraying
varied sentiments, these Faces together traverse a spectrum of emotions,
to finally surrender to infinite bliss. Though I have seen it last year,
it was like seeing a new program, for the music as well as presentation
has evolved over the year. As is Anita's practice, a few minutes of instrumental
music before curtains open, conveyed the mood of the evening to the audience.
The 5 pieces were The Face of Compassion (Raga: Sama) on Annapoorni, The
Face of Rage using traditional Sanskrit chant (Raga: Punnakavarali) on
Durga, The Forgotten Face (Raga: Jhonpuri), Timeless Faces (Raga: Brindavana
Saranga), The Face of Blissful Surrender (Raga: Brindavani) on Meera. The
brief spoken dialogues between items were also part of the recording, thereby
avoiding any lapel mike scratchy sound problems! This is wise, especially
since most auditoriums here don't really have great sound systems/equipment.
"Along with
the light effects and superb audio, the evening was delightful with Anita's
amazing expressions and graceful movements. Aasai Mugam marandhu pochae
brought tears to my eyes and the Ramayana was so well portrayed just with
music. We watched in awe at the different approach and enjoyed the Neo
Bharatham style," said audience member Sathya Nagaraj, an appreciation
that echoed what most of the viewers present felt.
Pic: Lalitha
Venkat
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On Dec 31, GS
Rajan gave a flute recital for Brahma Gana Sabha at Sivagami Pethachi
Auditorium. He was accompanied by T V Gopalakrishnan on the mridangam and
Vijay Anand on the violin. He completes 25 years of his concert career.
He is a sought after composer of dance music and the force behind the dance
and music portal www.artindia.net. Having recently finished a tour of the
US with Bharatanatyam dancer Rama Vaidyanathan, he observed that the main
reason for dwindling visitors this season was the recession in US. Hundreds
of NRIs they met in the various cities had told them that much as they
would love to be in India during the December season, they would not be
able to because of the recession.
The same evening,
there was a music program Melharmania for New Year eve celebrations
at the Gandhi Nagar Club, Chennai. Chitraveena Ravi Kiran and his young
ensemble were accompanied by violinist Akkarai Subbulakshmi and pianist
Anil Srinivasan in a scintillating performance that actually had most of
the audience sitting glued to their seats, reveling in the melodies – instead
of chattering loudly and concentrating on refreshments! The highlight of
the concert was the ragam Keeravani played symphonic style. What a nice
way to usher in the New Year! |
