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 Prahalada Natya Roopakam - Balayogi Venkataraman e-mail: balayogiv@gmail.com October 16, 2023 When a great theme is performed by a good team in one of the most revered institutions of classical arts namely Kalakshetra, the entire ambience is invigorating with aesthetic vibrations of all hues and colours. Natya Roopakam, what is new and why is it needed? It emphasizes that art and culture cannot be allowed to become too stereotyped, trite, redundant leading them to be fossilized or ossified but they have to evolve, like everything else, by wading through the tides of trends -which could be contributory, complementary, contrasting, conflicting, contaminating etc- with the oars of compulsions and compromises and sail smoothly and safely to ensure the fundamental and basic principles or inherent aspects of the art form are kept intact and appropriate doses of innovations are introduced to ensure that there is a subtle transformation through a smooth transition from tradition but not away from or apart from it. Because culture is an important part of life, it creates a very powerful impact through various forms of artistic expression the multiple meanings of life as journey of the souls experiencing, acting and interacting with all its tools like body, mind, emotions etc. The occasion  Guru Minal Prabhu receiving the award This was performed as part of Tapas Cultural Foundation's Sishyotsava 2023 on 1st October 2023 at Rukmini Arangam, annual awards function wherein two eminent artistes were awarded Vidhya Tapasvi award for their lifelong contribution to Bhakthi oriented traditional music and dance. The awards were presented by Srilasri Buddhatmananda Saraswati Swamiji (of Sri Rajeswari Peetam) to Bharatanatyam Guru Minal Prabhu and veena vidwan Kannan Balakrishnan. The concept of Narasimha Avatar  Narasimha Avatar is a concept which explains that anything done with immense and involved dedication, focused concentration, conviction with courage, executed and performed with total intensity and intense totality will bring out the desired result and reveal the truth, hitherto hidden from our purview and perceptions symbolically breaking open the well cemented preconceptions which protect the edifice of ignorance imbued ideologies within which and identities with which we live. What important impact does Natya Roopakam create? Today we face the harsh reality of the more difficult art of carrying out the necessary transition from tradition into transformation in classical music and natyams of India. First, our traditional arts and culture are mostly imbued with and/or embedded in bhakthi orientation with lot of religiously venerated mythological, historical, and theological, some esoterically conveyed philosophical concepts and scientific aspects as well. Most aspects of Indian culture are multifaceted splendours with each facet revealing itself according to the frame of reference and scale of observation of the individual. Most of these traditional cultures and arts were neither constrained by these aspects nor confined to these aspects but rather used them as a medium to convey through different art forms certain emotions; in some cases high philosophical concepts; in some cases social mores; in some cases appealing to the aesthetic sensitivities of human beings; in some cases portraying the sensuous and natural aspects of life; in some portraying and appealing to the various senses at different levels; in some individual morals and principles for enhancing one's inherent potential, embellishing one's character etc. Man's status of advancement There are various types of creations in art. We shall confine to a few of them as prevalent at present in arts, especially classical music and natyams (dances). There are creations that are consumer centric where productions are tailor made to suit the tastes and trends of consumer and the marketing channels that cater to such consumers like television channels, films, certain auditoriums etc. There are also creations wherein the creations follow just the flow of creative instinct of the creator unmindful of anything else, sometimes including the rules, grammar, and basic structures of the medium of art. There are creations where the emphasis is on themes wherein everything is made to project a particular theme in shining colours even if that involves foregoing great creativity, consumer interests etc. There are certain creations that manifest the mastery of the techniques of the medium by the creator. There are certain creations which make a delicate balance of most of the different kinds of creations mentioned above (without messing around too much in the name of innovations which take the sap out of the theme, context and culture) through a well-knit team which thinks, trains, dreams and delivers with a well synchronized sense of purpose a passion filled production which impels consumers to become connoisseurs of that piece of creation.  It requires a conscious delicate combination of certain amount of all types and aspects of creative activity because very often even the best of the creators put their whole heart and soul in a production but leave their mind out which results in lack of sustained response. Such balanced productions emanate from experiments with roots in traditions and limitations of license that one can take with various parameters of culturally entrenched themes and art forms. What these types of productions do is to break the art from the shackles of stereotyped confines of classified creations; they may not scale up quantitatively in terms of additional number of consumers but sets the scales up for quality to a totally different level and thereby set a new trend of expectations from lovers and rasikas of art. This is precisely what Prahalada - a Natya Roopakam staged on 1st October at Kalakshetra did. The compositions of this program were penned down by Ashwin Kumar Iyer who like an architect conceptualizes certain themes ensuring an appropriate place for everything through lyrics packed with lot of meaning giving not only a complete portrayal of the character, events but also brings out the important concepts behind the characters and because of this architectural conceptualization which is the seed and script of any dance drama mostly everything else fall into its place.  The songs were beautifully tuned with a garland of ragas by P.B.Srirangachari which was appropriate to each, and every sentiment expressed in the lyrics. Ghatam V. Umashankar as music director has ensured to weave excellent patterns with many classical instruments without using any electronic instrument. Dr. R. Ganesh as a lead singer along with a host of other senior singers rendered the songs excellently. Mahalakshmi Ashwin Kumar as choreographer, with a team of excellent dancers including many senior dancers like Vijay Madhavan and S. Shivakumar gave a wonderful presentation even deftly handling very difficult roles.  Balayogi Venkataraman is a biz and investment consultant. His passion is classical music and dance. |
