Venue: Montgomery High School Auditorium, Skillman, NJ
Forgotten Seed
Smt. Alarmel Valli performed on Nov 1st accompanied by:
Vocal: Smt. Nandini Sharma Anand
mrudangam: Sri Shaktivel Muruganandam
naTTuvAngam: Sri C. K. Vasudevan
Violin: Sri Natarajan Sikhamani
Lighting: Sri Murugan
The List:
1a) piLLaiyAr suzhi - gajavadanA karunA sadanA - Sriranjani
1b) Invocation - a collage of verses composed by Kalidasa (abhignAna SAkuntaLam and ritusamhAram); Subrahmanya Bharati; Ilango Adigal; and the atharva vEda delightfully woven together and presented as an ode to nature (prakruti) in rAgamAlikA (set to music by Smt. Prema Ramamurthy with input from Smt. Nandini S. Anand)
2) padavarNam - rAgamAlikA - Composed by Smt. Alarmel Valli and Smt. Prema Ramamurthy. jatis composed with input from Smt. Valli
3) padam - taken from naTRinai - sangam poetry - set to rAgamAlikA by Smt. Prema Ramamurthy
4) padam - taken from puranAnUru - set to rAgamAlika by Smt. Prema Ramamurthy (mullaiyum pUttanayO)
5) nrityalahari - rasikapriya - composed by Smt. Alarmel Valli and Smt. Prema Ramamurthy
6) maNgaLam
The performance:
The evening opened with a lovely outline of Sriranjani by Sri Sikhamani, followed by the popular P. Sivan composition rendered well.
The actual dance performance began after the musical invocation of the remover of obstacles. It was one of the most unusual and imaginative invocations I have seen. Smt. Valli's elfin charm was used to great effect to describe nature in all her manifestations. The verse from the SAkuntaLam paid obeisance to the divinity inherent in nature. The verse from ritusamhAram was used to show the sensuous beauty of nature. In this segment, Smt. Valli's depiction of a peacock was one of the best I've seen - her peacock was not dancing to attract a peahen, or for a human to admire - it was as if her peacock was dancing for himself, lost in sensuous abandon! bhArati's verse (I could not recognise it) was used to depict the terrible face of nature - natural disasters and calamities, while harmony was depicted through the description of nature in the silapatikAram. The fairly long piece concluded with a verse from the atharva vEda depicting nature as a woman - the seas her garments, the mountains her breasts, the rivers her garlands, and the dark clouds her tresses and so on.
The padavarNam was a composition on Siva set to shaNmukhapriya, vasantA, cArukESi, khamAs, and pUrvIkalyANi, with beautiful sancArIs - in one of them, the heroine (who is both the devotee and the lover) imagines Siva everywhere - the clouds remind her of his blue throat - leading to a depiction of the halAhalam incident. The jati after the vasantA portion was pure, vintage, Smt. Valli - graceful, twinkle-toed, filled with ullAsa naDais a-plenty.
The highlights of the evening were the 2 padams. The first was a rather atypical one - a sailor tries to engage the heroine in an amorous dalliance in the shade of a mighty laurel tree on the banks of the river he's come rowing on. The heroine demurs, and explains that the tree grew from a seed that she had planted, watered, and taken care of very devotedly - and how her mother, amused by the devotion, calls the tree her sister. So, she says that she can't be amorous in the shade of her 'sister'. The poem ends rather abruptly with the nAyikA pointing out other tress on the river bank. The whole story was very sensitively put together and presented very tastefully.
In the next (I have seen this before), with the sthAyi bhAva of pathos maintained through SubhapantuvarALi (with other rAgas used very appropriately in the sancAris), a woman bemoans and laments the death of a valiant young chieftain slain in battle. It ends with the woman asking a flowering jasmine creeper why she was still in bloom despite the grief around her. I was amazed at the use of kAnaDA (to the meTTu of 'mullai malar mElE') to generate the intensity of pathos and anger to depict the final lines - 'mullayum pUttanayO?'.
The nrityalahari (a tillAnA by another name?) was just that - cascading waves of music, rhythm, and dance. It was like a tillAnA sans the caraNasAhityam.
Complaints:
The introduction was rather cheesy.
The music was not my favorite part of this performance. The mrudangam was SO LOUD, it drowned the voice of the vocalist completely. To me, that defeats the concept of 'driSya kAvyam' completely, because it takes the 'kAvyam' out of the equation!
Age has slowed Smt. Valli down - her trademark, lightning-fast jati's were conspicuous by their absence. To me, her speed used to more than make up for the lack of perfect technique.
Highlights:
Smt. Valli's command over the audience with her very fluid explanations (I think one can listen to her talk for as long as one can watch her dance!) - she has one of the most melodious speaking voices I have heard, and her command over the language is enviable!
GRACE! GRACE! GRACE! Smt. Valli's elfin charm and grace were evident even in the salangai oli (sound of the anklets) backstage, let alone her presence on the stage.
Her planning and innovation - innovation strongly rooted in, and circumscribed by the traditional grammar of bharatanATyam. I think that Smt. Valli's superior understanding of music (she learnt music from Smt. Mukta for a very long time), and of bharatanATyam make her one of the most intellectual dancers today.
While the music drowned the vocalist, it was of a high caliber. Sri Sikhamani was a wizard on the violin, and Sri Muruganandam was amazing. Sri Vasudevan was one of the softest naTTuvanArs I have heard, yet, he was full of azhuttam (firmness). Smt. Nandini Anand was clearly a very gifted singer. Sri Murugan's magical skills on the lights and stage management were very unobtrusively evident. The orchestra was a great asset to this performance.
If I have to sum up Smt. Valli's performance in a one liner, it would be age may have slowed her, but custom has not staled her infinite charm.
Smt. Alarmel Valli at Skillman, NJ, Nov 1, 2009
-
cmlover
- Posts: 11498
- Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:36
Shankar
You have through your verbal chiaroscuro brought to life the whole performance. What a magnificent selection of themes! And then it is the Alarmel Valli the incomparable paragon of bharatanatyam. Having seen her performance in her younger days I fully endorse your final lines. Is she on a National Tour? God bless her for many more years!
You have through your verbal chiaroscuro brought to life the whole performance. What a magnificent selection of themes! And then it is the Alarmel Valli the incomparable paragon of bharatanatyam. Having seen her performance in her younger days I fully endorse your final lines. Is she on a National Tour? God bless her for many more years!
-
rshankar
- Posts: 13754
- Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:26
Thank you! I just wrote what I felt - and Smt. Valli did make me feel that way!
(I forgot to mention that Sri Sikhamani and Sri Murugan were also part of Smt. Priyadarshini Govind's orchestra when she toured the US last year.)
CML - the performance in NJ was the last stop on her tour. She and her troupe must be back in India now.cmlover wrote: Is she on a National Tour? God bless her for many more years!
(I forgot to mention that Sri Sikhamani and Sri Murugan were also part of Smt. Priyadarshini Govind's orchestra when she toured the US last year.)
-
rshankar
- Posts: 13754
- Joined: 02 Feb 2010, 22:26
Rajesh, it is a modern composition and term. I think the Dhananjayan's also use that term. It means a pure dance piece and the music has svaras and 'solkaTTus' (like a tillAnA - in addition, a tillAnA has a couple of lines of sAhityam too, which this nrityalahari did not have).rajeshnat wrote:What is nrityalahari???
-
Umesh
- Posts: 361
- Joined: 04 Jun 2006, 12:59
Ravi, was it nrityalahari or nrttalahari? The Dhananjayans use the term, "nrittangahaaram". And Alarmel Valli uses the term, "swaralaya", when swarams take the place of sollukattus.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRhCbGTf ... r_embedded
Fancy names, all basically the same thing.
And I enjoyed the review. There are just a few general things I might add:
Disclaimer: when it comes to reviewing dance, I'm not nearly as eloquent as the good Dr.!
the GOOD(GREAT!):
- shuddha-mudras! Smt. Valli must pump extra blood into every finger. She manipulates them so well that one could even say they dance more than her feet do!
- drishti. AV has awesome control over her eye movements. Combined with attami, they, too, dance on their own! She also defies "yatho hasta thatho drishti". Her face-to-face connection with the audience is paramount in her dancing, and this is perfectly fine because it WORKS. Nowhere do her movements look disconnected because her glances (leave alone the rest of her body) are timed and executed so precisely.
- figure. She's still got it!
- subtlety in mime. AV is always dignified in her abhinaya, sometimes a little too much so for me. But her ability to emote poignantly to the masses without crossing over into anything remotely "filmy" is admirable. IMO, she is more effective with sringara and adhbutam than the heavier rasas. I think this follows from her natural exuberance. The Purananooru piece was done well, but I couldn't get Smt. Govind's interpretation of the same out of my head.
the ehhh...:
- the protruding backside. In the execution of some of her adavus (e.g., kudhittumettu, dhidhithai [makuta]), AV bent forward and created a v-shape with her body. While a small amount of this is normal (esp. in styles like Vazhuvoor), I thought it was a bit excessive here. I found it peculiar because if you watch her earlier videos, she keeps her upper body relatively erect.
- the varnam. It was performed beautifully, but for an original composition, the theme was rather hackneyed. I think I saw her do this same varnam a couple years ago at the MMA Dance Festival, and I remember thinking the same thing.
- adavus. Perhaps this ties into what Ravi was saying about signs of age, but "filler" adavus seemed to abound in her dancing. Playful nadais from one side of the stage to the other are an example. I'm not sure if they were strategically placed or just came naturally since those have always popped up in her previous choreography (indeed they may be considered a hallmark of her style). Also, jathis in the varnam used similar sets of adavus. The charm with which she executed them made up for the repetitiveness, but a little more variety would have been nice.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mRhCbGTf ... r_embedded
Fancy names, all basically the same thing.
And I enjoyed the review. There are just a few general things I might add:
Disclaimer: when it comes to reviewing dance, I'm not nearly as eloquent as the good Dr.!
the GOOD(GREAT!):
- shuddha-mudras! Smt. Valli must pump extra blood into every finger. She manipulates them so well that one could even say they dance more than her feet do!
- drishti. AV has awesome control over her eye movements. Combined with attami, they, too, dance on their own! She also defies "yatho hasta thatho drishti". Her face-to-face connection with the audience is paramount in her dancing, and this is perfectly fine because it WORKS. Nowhere do her movements look disconnected because her glances (leave alone the rest of her body) are timed and executed so precisely.
- figure. She's still got it!
- subtlety in mime. AV is always dignified in her abhinaya, sometimes a little too much so for me. But her ability to emote poignantly to the masses without crossing over into anything remotely "filmy" is admirable. IMO, she is more effective with sringara and adhbutam than the heavier rasas. I think this follows from her natural exuberance. The Purananooru piece was done well, but I couldn't get Smt. Govind's interpretation of the same out of my head.
the ehhh...:
- the protruding backside. In the execution of some of her adavus (e.g., kudhittumettu, dhidhithai [makuta]), AV bent forward and created a v-shape with her body. While a small amount of this is normal (esp. in styles like Vazhuvoor), I thought it was a bit excessive here. I found it peculiar because if you watch her earlier videos, she keeps her upper body relatively erect.
- the varnam. It was performed beautifully, but for an original composition, the theme was rather hackneyed. I think I saw her do this same varnam a couple years ago at the MMA Dance Festival, and I remember thinking the same thing.
- adavus. Perhaps this ties into what Ravi was saying about signs of age, but "filler" adavus seemed to abound in her dancing. Playful nadais from one side of the stage to the other are an example. I'm not sure if they were strategically placed or just came naturally since those have always popped up in her previous choreography (indeed they may be considered a hallmark of her style). Also, jathis in the varnam used similar sets of adavus. The charm with which she executed them made up for the repetitiveness, but a little more variety would have been nice.
Last edited by Umesh on 15 Nov 2009, 08:15, edited 1 time in total.