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 Vatavriksham - Sreelatha Rajan e-mail: sreelatha.rajan@gmail.com January 11, 2024 New Jersey based Ramya Ramnarayan performed Vatavriksham at Chennai’s Brahma Gana Sabha dance festival on Jan 1, 2024. A student of Gurus SK Rajaratnam Pillai and Kalanidhi Narayanan, Vatavriksham was a delayed tribute to her guru SK Rajarathnam Pillai on the occasion of his 90th birth anniversary. Set in the margam format, Ramya included some of her work alongside the classic choreographies of her guru, which have since been revisited to her sensibilities. The first item was a Prabandha mala, where Ramya strung together 4 pasurams of Thondaradipodi Azhwar, Periyazhwar and Andal with the music set by SK Rajaratnam Pillai. It commenced with the description of the majestic beauty of Ranganatha through the “Pachai ma malai pol meni.” The nritta flowed into Periazhwar’s “Pallandu Pallandu”and later into “Nayakanai nindru,” the 16th pasuram (chosen for that day of Margazhi). Through the course of these pasurams, the dancer elaborated their lyrical value and interspersed with short jathis. On stage, she was the earnest Azhwar having intimate, lyrical conversation with the lord. Her interest in the Divyaprabandham and other Vaishnava works added a spiritual richness to the Prabandha mala and moved the viewers. It ended with the “Chittranchiru kalai.”  “Ma mohalahiri meeruthey” in ragam Khamas was the varnam for the evening. The nayika is in love and searches for a messenger to let Muruga know about her state. She implores her sakhi who is disinterested and then her parrot who wouldn’t listen. Then she spots the peacock, the vahana of Muruga and wants him as the messenger. The first sanchari ended with her spotting the peacock and then flowed into the jathi depicting a beautiful peacock dance. The nayika fails to get the birds to do her bidding and again takes up her cause with the sakhi by extolling Muruga. He is the one who led the devas to vanquish Tarakasura, and on whom Shakthi bestowed the divine spear. He dwells in the Kazhugumalai, the road to his dwelling is full of beautiful carvings. The king himself treks up those hills for his darshan. ‘Give my message to him when he is alone, not when with Valli.’ The varnam progressed as a story, the nayika awaits the return of the sakhi, understands that she has been rebuffed and laments that relationships with men are fleeting. They go through stages; the agony of break-up always follows the ecstasy. She remains in love but reconciles herself and is wiser. Ramya leveraged the beautiful music and sahithyam to move the varnam forward as a single story, flowing from jathis to hands to sancharis seamlessly. The nayika traversed through a gamut of emotions, from excitement, irritation, hope and then abruptly into acceptance and fond remembrance, skipping the essential in-between disappointment. This was followed by her experimental work ‘Surrender’ (a collaboration with Maya Kulkarni, music by Rajkumar Bharati), exploring Krishna through a Meera bhajan and a Nachiyar Thirumozhi pasuram. As Meera, Ramya danced to the verses from “Jo tum todo piya,” showing her mad love for Krishna and then as Andal to a Nachiyar Thirumozhi pasuram depicting her inner churn. She aspired to link the two verses through the metaphor of ocean. Both Krishna bhaktas offer contrasting images – the princess who considers herself to be a Krishna dasi and a mere fish in the ocean and Andal, assertive and demanding her place, saying, ‘like the ocean you churned, my mind is churned by longing.’ Sequencing the bhajan and pasuram back-to-back gave the impression of these being standalone dance sequences and did not fully present the possibilities suggested by the name. Bhakthi overrode the nuances the nayikas had to offer, nevertheless giving a spiritual joy to the viewers. Ramya concluded her evening’s dance performance with a Gambeeravani thillana. The orchestra was rich with bhava and held its own even while being in sync with the performance. One could look at the orchestra and feel the dance. Swamimalai Suresh was on vocal and nattuvangam and evoked memories of SK Rajaratnam Pillai. Eshwar Ramakrishnan on violin, Nagai Narayanan on percussion and Muthu on flute completed the music ensemble. The venue was PS Senior Secondary School where the stage didn’t offer enough depth to the dance. Vatavriksham held an old-world charm, where the performance weighed the poetry, music, nritta and nritya in the right proportions without some of the excesses seen onstage these days.  Sreelatha Rajan is a rasika and a writer who loves languages. |
