This was an offering organized by Nrithyanjali Institute of Dance, Inc. (run by Kalaimamani Smt. Ramya Ramnarayan), and hosted by the Plainsboro Arts Council. The evening unfolded in 2 parts - the first was a bharatanATyam offering, and the second was 'samarpaN 2009', a kucipuDi offering by Smt. Shobha Natarajan and Madhavapeddi Sri Murthy and their group of dancers, commemorating the 80th birthday of Guru and doyen, Vempati Sri Chinna Satyam.
The list
Part 1:
1) pushpAnjalI by students of Nrithyanjali
2) kAraNam nIyE - padavarNam - kApi - Madurai Sri R. Muralidharan by students of Smt. Chitra Venkateswaran
3) mahiSAsura mardini - Guru Ramya
4) galE bhujang - students of Nrithyanjali
5) nrityAvaLI
6) viSamakAra kaNNan - sencuruTTi - c. eka? - OVK by Guru Ramya
7) tillAnA - yamankalyAN - m. cApu - LGJ by Guru Ramya
8) mANikkam kaTTi - periAzhvAr pASuram
Part 2:
Recorded Music - Vocals - Sri O. S. Arun, and Sri Girish. A whole host of accompanying artists were mentioned - I can't decipher my handwriting!
Dancers: Smt. Shobha Natarajan (SN), Madhavapeddy Sri Murthy (MM), Dr. Sangeeta Rangala (SR), Smt. Radha Pasanna (RP), Smt. Archana Murli (AM) and Smt. Vasanti Ravi (VR)
1) slOkam - vakratuNDa mahAkAya followed by gAyiyE gaNpati jag vandan (O. S. Arun) by SN and MM
2) SivAshTakam - rAgamAlikA - Adi Sankara (Girish) by MM and AM
3) kuRain onDrum illai - rAgamAlikA - Rajaji (Girish) by MM
4) paramakaruNay - rAgamAlikA - Narayana Teertha tarangam (Girish) by all
5) brahmamokaTE - (very folksy) nAdanAmakriyA - Annamayya by SN
6) aye husne bEparvAh tujhE Sabnam kahUn SolA kahUn - ghazal (Gulam Ali)
7) Nostalgia a composition of Yanni
8) tillAnA - pUrvi - T. Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar
The Perfromance
Part 1: Thanks to my non-existent sense of geography, I arrived late! I missed the pushpAnjali, and a bunch of us had to wait outside while the varNam was completed before we could be seated. The strains of kApi were unmistakable, but the words were not discernible, so it was pretty frustrating! I also felt that there were some brindAvana sArangA-ish phrases...(don't know if this is even possible, or just my unschooled imagination!).
The mahiSAsura mardini piece by guru Rmaya was very powerfully delivered - it had verses from the mahiSAsura mardini stOtram alternating with some others (e.g., sindUrAruNa rakta varNam at the beginning, dhyAyE padmAsanasthAm) with short jatis/svaras interspersed for nritta. Smt. Ramya's nritta was as usual very precise, crisp and graceful. I was very impressed with the high leg rises! I wonder if in the context of the dEvI, 'SrI vidyA' refers to sarasvati, or something else (SrI vidyA upAsana?). The group choreography for galE bhjanga, a bhajan which describes Siva in detail was very nice (vyAghra vasana was the only descriptor that was not 'mimed'!). I did not particularly like the nrityAvaLi - it was a bit 'filmy'. This is the second time I watched viSamakAra kaNNan - once again I was struck by how seamlessly the music and dance were knit together - the dance just flowed out of the music - it was hard to separate the two out - (rather like 'vENu gAnam tenral ODu Sernda pinnAlE gAnam veru kATRu vErAi kETpadE illai') - It spoke volumes for the process of internalization that must have occurred to make them meld so well. I know that VK et al feel that the song does very badly by mukhAri, but the humor in that segment was really brought alive, and although a very light piece, the dancing was able to elevate it to the sublime. This was followed by Sri LGJ's yamankalyAN tillAnA which was very well presented with the effervescent ebullience it deserved (I do hope that at least once, in at least one of the iterations of mAdhava, it is depicted as the husband (dhava) of lakshmI (mA) instead of repeatedly using a krishNa motif!). This was followed by a beautiful tAlATTu - mANikkam kaTTi. (BTW - does 'ulagam unDavanE' in this context refer to krishNa's eating mud and showing the 14 worlds in his mouth?). The first part was concluded and the second part proceeded immediately, thankfully, without any break.
Part 2: One of the strengths of bharatanATyam from its inception was the catholicity of the languages of the compositions it was performed to, right from the ancient times - with compositions in sanskrit, telugu, kannaDA, maLayALam and marAThi being in vogue, in addition to the large number of tamizh compositions. Hindi followed in the 80s and other languages like bengali and gujrati to name a few followed suit. In contrast, the other classical dance forms were presented to the accompaniment of compositions in either sanskrit or the language of the region the dance-form was from. In this situation, kucipuDi was mostly performed to compositions in telugu or sanskrit. But with the globalization of the art form, compositions in other languages are finding their way into the repertoire of these dance forms (tamizh songs in kucipuDi performances, kathak to kishNA nI bEganE bArO etc.). The kucipuDi performance on the 30th was designed to showcase the new-found flexibility of kucipuDi - the opening item was a ganES vandana - it was very nicely executed - with tiny sancaris - showing the tussle between gaNpati and muruga for the mango; and the episode where, as the scribe for vEdavyAsa when the latter composes the mahAbhArat, he breaks of a piece of his tusk to serve as a writing implement. I have to say that switching from the padArtha abhinaya of bharatanATyam to the vAkyArtha abhinaya of kucipuDi was slightly unsettling. I really liked the high energy SivAshTakam. The performance of kuRai onrum illai fell way short of the sublime that was being attempted with such effort. I also noticed that for most of the 'taTTimeTTu' sequences, the legs were crossed at the ankles - is that the norm in kucipuDi? The tarangam was interesting with the daSAvatAram as sancArI, and this was the number used to perform the 'tarangam' on brass plates. The group choreography probably needs some kinks ironed out - for instance, I felt that the dancers were too crowded together, cramping free movement of arms. brahmamokaTe was very evocative. If MM missed the sublime in kuRai onrum illai, he more than made up for it in the ghazal (you can hear it at http://www.dishant.com/album/Ghulam_Ali ... i_-_2.html. His entreaties to his bE parvAh (pArAmukham) dilruba were very poignantly portrayed (makes for an excellent padam for a male dancer). I felt that the choreography to Yanni's Nostalgia (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7bNal4-amdE) was tedious and did not appeal to me at all. The tillAnA was well presented, but the lovely caraNam was omitted.
Some complaints:
The comperes for both parts presented information about the musical composition very sporadically - i.e., rAgas, and more importantly tALas were not mentioned, and composers were identified sporadically. Given that driSya kAvya can not exist without the kAvya, it bothered me that the kAvya received such step-motherly treatment.
I was also left wondering why there was no mangaLam at the end.
