Smt. Priyadarshini Govind on Nov 21st at N Brunswick HS, NJ

[rshankar]

Couple of points at the outset:
1) This is not a review but a intensely personal account.
2) As I write this on Thanksgiving day, I would like to offer my sincere thanks to the the organizers, and the artists. In most cases, what the audience sees on stage is the result of the artist's tapasya/sAdhana. In the case of Smt. Priyadarshini Govind, I think her performances on stage are her tapasya. Watching her dance is such an intense experience, it is like watching someone like the paramAcArya (of kAnci) perform his daily pUja.

bharatanATyam: Smt. Priyadarshini Govind
naTTuvAngam: Sri K. S. Balasubramaniam
Vocal: Smt. Preethi Mahesh
mRdangam: Sri Saktivel Muruganandam
Violin: Sri Sikhamani
Organizers: IACRF and Nrityanjali

The list
1. Vocal invocation: jaya jaya svAmin - nATTai - Adi - nArayaNa tIrtha
2. mallAri - gambhIranATTai - khaNDa tripuTa - rythmic portions composed by Sri Saktivel Muruganandam
3. alArippu - khaNDa tripuTa
4. caraNaSRnga rahita patanjali kRta naTarAja stOtram - rAgamAlika - ? - Sage patanjali - music composed by Sri Ganesh and Sri Kumaresh, rhythmic portion composed by Sri Balasubramaniam and Smt. Govind
5. padavarNam - mOham AginEn inda vELaiyil - Sri K. N. Dandayudapani Pillai - jatis composer Swamimalai Sri Rajaratnam Pillai and Sri G. Vijayaraghavan
6. padam - inta mOhamEmi rA - SankarAbharaNam - tripuTa tALam - Kshetrayya
7. jAvaLi - appuDu manasu - khamAs - rUpaka tALam - Patnam Subramania Iyer
8. kIrtanam - jagadoddhAraNa - kApi - Adi - purandaradAsaru
9. vishamakArakaNNan - sencuruTTi - Eka tALam - Oothukaadu Venkatasubbaiyer
10. tillAnA - pUrvi - Adi - Pudukottai Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar
11. bRdAvani vENu vAzE - AbhEri/bhImplAs - ? - Bhanudasa (abhang)

The performance
The evening started about 30 minutes late. After a brief and succinct introduction of the artists by Smt. Ramya Ramnarayan (from nrityAnjali), the evening was underway with a lovely sketch of nATTai by the violinist. nATTai is a rAgam that instantly conjures up the magic of wonderful things to come for me, and when the naTTuvanAr's cymbals sound, I am transported to a land far away. Sri Sikhamani's sketch was followed (ulTa) by a briefer outline from Smt. Preethi who then took up nArayaNa tIrthar's ode to gaNapati - jaya jaya svAmin. After that soulful invocation to the remover of obstacles, Smt. Govind came on stage and the evening was launched without much further ado.

The rhythmic set up and the choreography of the mallAri was very evocative of the movements of the deities being carried in procession (like a mallAri should), and it ended with a brief verse on nATyam. It them segued into the alArippu - a post-modern take. As the naTTuvanAr was reciting the 'Sollus', Smt. Mahesh was singing what appeared like verses from the sAma vEda (perhaps).

The next item was the caraNaSRnga rahita (no dIrga vowels in the entire composition) description of naTarAja tANDavam - Siva is supposed to have danced to these verses in cidambaram (perhaps when 'vaDakayilaiyil munnAl mAmunikkaruL SeidapaDi tavarAmal tillaippadiyil vandu tai mAdattil guru pUSattil pagal nErattil' he came and performed the tANDavam for patanjali and vyAghrapAda). Smt. Govind announced that it was their first presentation of this piece (in Stroudsberg PA on the 20th, and in North Brunswick on the 21st). The slokam was presented in parts like a kauttuvam (with the naTTuvanAr reciting, and the vocalist singing the same lines), in parts with the naTTuvanAr reciting simultaneously as the vocalist was singing, and for the rest, like a regular composition. The nRtta was just superb for this piece.

The centerpiece - the padavarNam - for the evening was the masterpiece of Sri KNDP's, the SRngAra padavarNam with Siva as the nAyaka, mOham AginEn indavELaiyil (Meenalochana's version is the correct one it seems). As explained, Smt. Govind captured the changing moods of the pining nAyika very well - extreme viraha at the beginning, and then, the subtle shift in the caraNam where she asks 'mAdE yArukkAgilum bhayamA, idu rahasiyama?'. The aspects of viraha as well as the heroine's 'don't care' attitude were depicted very well and clearly. The nRtta portions were chiseled perfection, as usual. The opening trikAla jati I think was Smt. Govind's guru, Swamimalai Sri Rajaratnam's. One of the jatis (that came in the anupallavi - 'ambalam tanil naTamADum...segment) sounded like the tinkling bells of Siva's anklets. In the anupallavi, Smt. Govind interpretted 'vAhan' as the Lord riding a bull, but vAhan, AFAIK means a handsome young man...

Since there was a time constraint, the artists eschewed the typical post-varNam break, and went ahead with the rest of the program - it spoke volumes for Smt. Priya's stamina.

Of the trio famous composers of padams (erotic poetry), if Sri annamAcArya, who wrote of the carnal love between his beloved lord of the seven hills and alamElumangA was the temple-poet and if Sri sArangapANi, with his coarse eroticism probably placed himself in the courtesan's bedroom, then Sri Kshetrayya's subtle and refined poetry would place him somewhere in between. Smt. Priya chose a beautiful padam of Sri Kshetrayya's. Starting with the anupallavi, 'you don't seem to be able to keep your eyes off her', Smt. Priya made effective use of the pallavi/refrain, 'inta mOham Emi rA' extremely effectively, by portraying the ageing nAyika as one who despite being supplanted by a younger lady in her man's affections is someone who keeps her feelings in check when she finds her man back at her doorstep while still being in the thrall of the other woman. I am not sure if it is typical to interpret this padam to end with the nAyika sending her man away to the other woman (because it is not part of the lyrics).

One usually associates Patnam Sri Subramania Iyer with tyAgarAjA-esque compositons, but he has also composed some jAvaLis. Smt. Priya chose the jAvaLi appuDu manasu in khamAs, one of my favorite rAgas in a dance performance - an earthy jAvaLi where the nAyika makes the case that when a beautiful maiden in the full bloom of her youth and a handsome young man exchange glances, the sparks that fly cannot and should not be kept under wraps, propriety be damned!

The presentation of jagadoddhAraNa was clearly the abhinaya piece de resistance - the contrast between how the very lord of the universe was treated like a mere child by his mother yaSOdA could not have been portrayed in a better way - for instance, the way Smt. Priya showed how the lord who would provide yards and yards and yards of saree (to draupadi) was dressed by yaSOdA in a tiny piece of pitAmbar, or how yaSOdA sends the Lord who minds the whole world out to mind cows brought that point home so well.

Next came the piece that had many people laughing out loud - Sri OVK's vishamakAra kaNNan. Smt. Priya's meticulous attention to details in the choreography were evident even in this rather light piece (a flute that was being played would always be tucked into the waist before kRshNa used his hands for instance). kRshNa's antics were perfectly portrayed.

Smt. Govind announced that the pUrvi tillAnA was really a drupad (?). Smt. Preethi sang the caraNasAhityam (I think it extols the indivisibility of nAdabrahmam and nirguNabrahmam) as a viruttam, followed by the famous 'ni ri ni ri' intro to the tillAnA, which once again was full of verve and pep, and one had to but marvel at Smt. Govind's stamina, to deliver this tillAnA with the punch and rhythmic brilliance that is her forte after nearly 2:15 hours of continuous dancing.

The audience was offered a choice between the abhang, brindAvne vENu vAzE, or kAntamAm; I think the audience was filled with Harimau's 'friends', for they chose the abhang by an overwhelming majority - I think Umesh and I were the only ones rooting for kAntamAm. With the abhang, the whole magical evening came to an end. It was like the pontiff had finished his prayers and the others in the maTham were distributiong the prasAdam.

All I want to say about Smt. Govind's technique is that it was flawless as expected, and her control was amazing.

The naTTuvanAr, Sri Balasubramaniam was excellent, and it was obvious that he is a good vocalist as well. If Smt. Priya emoted on stage, Smt. Preethi did it with her voice. She was superb. Sri Muruganandam, in addition to his obvious rhythmic expertise in setting up the choreography, is a great mRdangam player - unobtrusive, yet unmistakably clear. I am a big fan of Sri Sikhamani - his rAga outlines were superb, and the medley he played before the pUrvi tillAnA (I remember kApi and hindOLam before pUrvi) was melodious and on point.

After the performance, some of the comments seemed to indicate that while Smt. Govind was perfection personified, perhaps, that degree of perfection was a bit too intense and unrequired for an audience here. However, after complaining for nearly 2 decades that many performers do just that - provide second-rate fare to us here in the name of experimentation, I have to say that personally I am glad that Smt. Priya Govind doesn't subscribe to that view.

[radhikashetty]

Very well written report, Ravi. I just loved every bit of her performance. I even forgot to blink a lot of times
Thought would meet you after the program. Sorry, couldn't make it

[mankuthimma]

I am a big fan of Sri Sikhamani - his rAga outlines were superb, and the medley he played before the pUrvi tillAnA (I remember kApi and hindOLam before pUrvi) was melodious and on point.

Next time you are here we can have a private session with him at my residence , where he drops in often.
He is the son of Alandur Natarajan(brother of S Ramnathan)

[mankuthimma]

I even forgot to blink a lot of times

A fine way of saying it.Captures the power of the performance.

[radhikashetty]

Ravi, just another quick thing on the varnam lyrics, if you watch this video, of the same varnam by Ms. Rama Vaidyanathan, http://www.ramavaidyanathan.com/video.html , this has a different lyrics, Not sure which is the correct one.

[madhan]

In ms.rama's video i dont get why the singer sings yojanai (a measure of distance) instead of yosanai!

[rajeshnat]

Ravi
Lovely review , but i prefer blinking a bit when I read your reviews |( , Please put some whitespaces between paragraphs. You can even edit this particular post too please....

[rshankar]

Kji - I will look forward to that. Sri Sikhamani is wonderful...so, it will be a treat!
Rajesh - LOL! I have edited my post!
Radhika/Madhan, in the link I provided to the lyrics page on this forum, you will see that there are 2 versions - Lji's and Meenalochanas, so it is kind of hard for me to understand which one is correct. Having said that, I think that Smt. Priya's version comes with the pedigree that it was set up by her guru Swamimalai Sri Rajaratnam Pillai. I am not sure of the provenance of the other version.

[VPR]

I enjoyed your review of the program RShankar. Thank you.

[Sreeni Rajarao]

Ravi,
Thanks for taking me to the auditorium in New Jersey even as I was here in Michigan!

[rshankar]

Sreeni/VPR - you are welcome!