Release of dance DVD 'MLV Favorites'

January 6, 2012

Bharata Nrityam exponent Bala Devi Chandrashekar’s dance DVD titled ‘MLV Favorites’ was released on New Year day by Sangam Festival and Swathi Soft Solutions under the auspices of Kartik Fine Arts at Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai, in a short and sweet function.
 
The august gathering included L Sabaretnam (Chairman of Kartik Fine Arts), Charumathi Ramachandran (MLV’s senior most disciple), dancer Lakshmi Viswanathan, Dr. Prema Krishnaswamy (a long time associate of MLV) and MLV’s two accomplished accompanists, mridangam vidwan Mannargudi Easwaran and L Kanyakumari.  The guest of honor was Ramaswamy, the Chairman of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan.

The DVD was released by Charumathi Ramachandran.  She recalled her guru’s impeccable music and noted this DVD to be a true offering to this legend of Carnatic music. The first copy of the DVD was received by dancer Lakshmi Viswanathan, who congratulated Bala Devi Chandrashekar for taking up the theme of ‘MLV favorites,’ calling it “a DVD to be treasured.” Chief guest L Sabaretnam commended the dancer on her effort in bringing a visual treat of the legend’s work.
 
Mannargudi Eswaran, who had accompanied ML Vasanthakumari for many concerts, recalled that she was a genius who created “sangathis” on the fly and it was a challenge to keep pace with her spontaneous innovation and virtuosity, hence the DVD would be a real treat to visualize MLV’s music thorough dance as all the songs in it were truly MLV’s favorites. A snippet from the DVD was screened.

Says Bala, “The GNB centenary celebration triggered my thought to work on a dance DVD based on MLV's favorites. The work took close to 3 years to visualize and choreograph. My idea was to visualize MLV's musical manodharma through dance. I conceived the whole idea in a margam format. The songs featured are vara vallabha ramana, mathe daru varnam, murugan maru peyar, baro krishnaiah, dikku teriyatha kaatil, dhanasri thillana.”