|     |
|
| |
 Prakeertih: Completely praiseworthy - Gayatri Krishnaveni Lakshmanan e-mail: gayatrikodha@gmail.com Photos: R Venkatesh, a4medias December 15, 2021 Prakeertih by Dr. Lakshmi Ramaswamy was presented at Bharat Kalachar and I was glad to have been able to see such a wonderful thematic margam. It was spellbinding to begin with. The Navadurgas came alive in a beautiful viruttam followed by Dikshitar kriti Amritavarshini. Madras has been in a state of water for many days now and once more I felt drenched in the blessings of Guruguha Janani. The crisp jathis (Dr. Guru Bharadwaj) were interspersed in the samaasti charanam and was like a downpour of nritta. The three dancers were so well synchronized, and each image was captivating.  From Devi, the theme went on to Dasavataram, lyrics penned by Dr.S. Raghuraman and tuned by Dr. Rajkumar Bharati in Reetigowlai. Paarkkadalil was a treat to watch as the five dancers weaved beautiful imagery of Lord Vishnu. They were in perfect sync and made it seem like there were about 50 dancers on stage. The age old jathis were so crisply done and so were the characters of Kurma (Vidya Gopinath), Vamana (Dhivya Srilakshmi) and Surpanakha (Ananya Duvvuri). Neha Palani as Sita was petite and showed much poise. Kapali nee, a composition of Lalita Sivakumar set to a rare ragam Palini, was choreographed with lots of interlinked stories of Lord Kapali of Thirumayilai. The well known story of Poompavai being bought to life by Gnanasambandar, Bikshadanar, and the story of Goddess Parvati who worshipped Lord Kapali in the form of a peacock were depicted neatly.  
The entire aharya was very carefully done with lovely costumes and handmade designer jewelry (Lalita Narasimhan).The compere (Jagyaseni), lighting and audio (Iyappan) was all meticulously planned with a lot of aesthetics. I have come to the conclusion that the age old tradition of natyam is best when it is not meddled with. Prakeertih stood out for its timeless choreography and thought process. Lakshmi Ramaswamy truly deserves to be praised for having presented such an amazing theme. I took back so much of values and ideas along with a content anubhava.  Gayatri Krishnaveni Lakshmanan is the director of Krishnadhwani School of Natya in Chennai. |
