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 Kapardhini Dance Festival - Madhuri Sarkar e-mail: sarkarmadhuri88@gmail.com Photos: Vinay Datta April 18, 2024 The third edition of Kapardhini Dance Festival was organized on March 16 at Seva Sadan, Bangalore. The event was well designed with the performances of eminent artistes like K Murali Mohan and Nandini Mehta alongside other artistes like Anil Iyer, Padmini Upadhyay and Darshan Shankar, the organizer of the festival. The chief guest for the event was Guru Vyjayanthi Kashi.  Darshan Shankar Darshan Shankar is the founder and director of Kapardhini School of Dance in Bangalore. He has a Master's Degree in Bharatanatyam from Annamalai University. The event started with his own Bharatanatyam recital. He performed an item in Shankarabaranam and on Lord Hanuman. Both the items showed his hard work and perfection, especially his realistic movements as Hanuman was a delight to the audience. Darshan was accompanied by a set of talented artistes. According to Guru Vyjayanthi Kashi, the satwik bhava Darshan depicted through his bhakti expressions was commendable. She also congratulated him for organising such a dance festival year after year with so much dedication.  K Murali Mohan & Nandini K Mehta Gurus K Murali Mohan and Nandini K Mehta are well-known names in the field of Kathak. They performed their choreography on Madhurashtakam composed by Atul Desai, sung by Faiyaz Khan followed by Ektaal based on the pure technique of Kathak. Thaat, Aamad, Tukda, Paran, Chakradar Paran, Bant, and Tihai in Ektaal with the music of Praveen D Rao were splendid. Their experience and involvement with this art form were visible through 'Rusli Radha, Rusla Madhav', a Marathi Abhang which relates to a small tiff between Radha and Krishna leading to their sour moods and the emotional mirroring impact it had on the entire Gokul. The minute and detailed abhinaya as the witty Krishna played by Murali, captivated the audience. They concluded their performance with a traditional 'Hori' piece of Meera.  Padmini Upadhya Padmini Upadhya was the third performer of the evening. Disciple of Guru Narmada and Indira Kadambi, Padmini performed Bharatnatyam items mainly based on Karanas. Her first rendition was 'Galey bhujanga', a devotional piece describing the beauty of Lord Shiva who ornaments himself with the moon on his head and a snake around his neck. It was in raga Pantuvarali set to mishra chapu talam. In "Radhika tava virahe" a Jayadeva ashtapadi in raga Vasanthi set to adi talam, she beautifully showcased the pain of Radha through her abhinaya skills. She finished her recital with "Anthapura geethe" which talks about a Madanika who expresses herself disguised as a Kuravanji or a fortune teller.  Anil Iyer The last artiste of the evening was young multi-talented Bharatanatyam dancer Anil Iyer, a counselling psychologist, a student of Carnatic vocal and an active theatre artiste. He presented an experimental item called Swara Kavya, a poem that depicts the Mahashakthi Peethas of goddess Parvathi. This composition is interspersed with musical notes or 'swaras', and travels from one significant shrine and pilgrim destination to another. It is composed by Praveen Markandachari in Ragamalika set to adi talam, choreographed by Anil Iyer himself. He concluded with 'Akhilandeshwari rakshamam', a beautiful Muthuswami Dikshitar kriti in raga Jujavanti, choreographed by Guru Poornima Gururaja. Talking about the context of life, energy or even the world, everything comes in the form of a circle; and as the meaning of the word 'Akhilandeshwari' suggests, the dance movements were also kept in circular forms brilliantly.  Madhuri Sarkar is a Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi practitioner (Bangalore). She's a disciple of Sarbani Ghosh and Vyjayanthi Kashi and is Founder/Director at Nigamsudha Performing Arts. |
