Smt. Priyadarshini Govind, March 31, 2012, NJ

[rshankar]

Smt. Priyadarshini Govind - Montgomery High School, Skillman New Jersey, March 31, 2012

Disclaimer: This is not strictly a review, but more like my musings. I hope others who were in the audience that day will chip in thier views as well.

bharatanATyam: Smt. Priyadarshini Govind

Accompanied by:
Vocal: Sri Gomati Nayakam
naTTuvANgam: Sri K. S. Balakrishnan
mRdangam: Sri Vedakrishnan Venkateshan
Violin: Sri Dipu Karunakaran Nair
Stage Management (including lights): Sri Krishnan

The List:
Invocation: gaNanAyakam bhajEham – rudrapriya, Adi – MD
1. A combination of Sri Vedanta Desikar's garuDa daNDakam, mallAri, and Sri Bhadracala Ramadasa's garuDa gamana rA rA – rAgamAlikA, tALamAlikA
2. viruttam – sindUrAruNa vigraham, a verse from lalitA sahasranAmam, followed by ambA kAmAkshI (svarajati) – bhairavi, miSra cApu – SS

3. jAnarO I mOhamu – khamAs, Adi – PSI
4. arivEnaiyyA – aThAnA, ? – Subbarama Iyer
5. jO accutAnanda – kApi, Adi – Annamacarya
6. tillAnA – behAg, ? – Dr. BMK
7. pibarE rAmarasam – Ahir bhairav, ? - Sadasiva Brahmendra

The Performance:
The evening began (just 30 minutes later than the scheduled time) with an energetic invocation to the remover of obstacles by way of a rather rare kRti of Sri dIkshitar.

This was followed by the opening dance piece, which to me was the most imaginative composition of the evening. Using sections of the garuDa daNDakam, mallAri, and the kRti, garuDa gamana rA rA, Smt. Govind began the evening by paying obeisance to the vAhana of the lord (garuDa daNDakam), the procession carrying SrIman nArAyaNa (mallAri), and the bhaktas that welcomed the procession (garaDa gamana rA rA). The whole piece was set to music by the father of our forumite, Ms. Vidya Bharati, Sri Rajkumar Bharati. I can't read what I wrote down for the rAgas for this piece, but I think that the mallAri segments were in gambhIranATTai, and garuDa gamana rA rA was sung in mAyAmALavagauLai. Smt. Govind excelled in her depiction of the procession – which is precisely what the mallAri is supposed to do. A small crib was the profusion of zig-zag movements which I don't like.

Next was the grand centerpiece of the recital – the SyAmA SAstri masterpiece, ambA kAmAkshI, the svarajati in bhairavi. Smt. Govind announced that the rhythmic sequences were composed in collaboration with Sri Balalkrishnan, the naTTuvanAr of the evening, and a 'young' Sri Srikant Natarajan, taking care to not disrupt the flow of the music. The piece opened with a wonderful bhairavi AlApana by Sri Dipu Nair, and the lights came on with the dancer sitting in muzhumaNDi in the center of the stage. She started with a very beautifully sung powerful verse from the lalitA sahasranAmam with a graphic description of the dEvi translated into sensitively choreographed visual poetry. I found the ending of the viruttam/SlOkam and the start of the svarajati very arresting – with the upward-directed sUci invoking the supreme goddess very effortlessly. The opening trikAla jati, IMO, lacked the 'oomph' that is the trademark of Smt. Govind. When compositions like this are taken up in place of a pada varNam, the burden is on the rasika to understand not only the meaning of the lyrics, but the deeper philosophical intent, so as to appreciate the choreography. This is not the case with a usual padavarNam, where the composition usually serves as a medium for the dancer show her prowess, and easy enough to understand, for the most part. So, I guess many of the subtler nuances of the choreography were lost on me, but here are some of the things I did notice: 'kAmAkshi' was depicted for the most part with the kartari hasta highlighting the dancer's eyes – IMO it would have been more impactful if she had depicted sarasvati (kA) and lakshmi (mA) before miming the eyes. The singing was slow enough to have allowed for this. There was a small discrepancy when 'nIpa vana (kadamba vana) nilaya' morphed into 'nI pAvana nilaya'. Since the pace was slow, the split in 'kambugala nIrada cikura' was very pronounced, and came across as 'kambugalanI (pause) rada cikura'! At the start of the piece, I wondered how and where sancAris could/would be fitted in – there were three – the first, in the 'pUrvAnga' dealt with the composer's close relationship to the dEvi (to the best of my understanding), and the other two were near the very end of the 'uttarAnga' – a fleeting depiction of the slaying of mahishAsura, and a more detailed depiction of mInAkshi kalyANam. What worked brilliantly were the transitions from utter stillness to explosive movements, I guess to symbolize the fact that the dEvi is kriyA Sakti personified. And, I really liked the very aesthetic representation of phrases like 'kumbha kuca'.

After a short intermission and a costume change, Smt. Priyadarshini was back for the second half of the evening: a set of abhinaya pieces. She announced that the khamAs jAvaLi was more like a padam, and the aThAnA padam was very jAvaLi-esque. Both were beautifully presented with her trademark mixture of humor and (subtle) sarcasm coming through the nAyikas of both compositions, as the pieces demanded. For instance, in arivEnaiyya, where she communicated the idea that the 'hero' was all love and praise for the 'other' woman (in contrast to the fact that he was a boor to the heroine) I found the comparison he made to the other woman's face and the moon to be very amusing! The dancer was in her element as yaSOdA in jO accutAnanda presented in the style made popular by Smt. MSS as announced (set to music by Kadayanallur Sri Venkataraman, I guess). The tillAnA was the only piece of that evening, IMO that had serious nRtta [1], with trademark leaps and twirls, and ultra-precise movements. As it was rAmanavami, she ended the evening with a short but lovely pibarE rAmarasam, filled with bhakti rasam.

As a stand-alone performance, it would have been a very good one, but Smt. Govind's previous performances have set such a high bar, that I have to say that this one did not reach that level; it lacked a certain energy or zing. IMO, it had more to do with the choices in the first half of the program. What did work very well, and was a pleasure to watch as usual, was the elegance of Smt. Govind, her anga Suddha, her perfect symmetry (in movements, stage coverage, and patterns traced in space), and her very aesthetic and restrained abhinaya.

The accompanying artists: Sri Gomati Nayakam was a revelation. What a booming voice he has! Despite that, he was able to create subtle modulations as the situation demanded. Sri Dipu Nair was great – accompanied very sensitively. Sri Vedakrishnan was also very good – he did not engage in loud banging, but was very appropriate. Sri Balakrishnan's naTTuvAngam was forceful. But the real master of the evening was Sri Krishnan – if the dancer emoted on stage, the singer with his voice modulations and the others played supporting roles, Sri Krishnan 'emoted' with his superb and perfectly-timed light changes – his spotlight found the dancer unerringly everytime, instead of tracing a drunken path across the stage as is usually the case, and the lights captured the mood of the piece perfectly – be it the sthAyi or the sancAri bhAva.

I did find the volume of the whole ensemble to be very loud - I was not able to appreciate any imbalance or feedback - it just felt that the volume knob had been turned on full-blast.

I also had an opportunity to catch up with Umesh.

[1] I realize I have to explain this - the svarajati obvioulsy had to have had nRtta passages, right? Well, there was only one jati; but of course, there were so many svara passages, that more could have been redundant. But what I mean by lack of serious nRtta is that possibly because the team did not want to disrupt the musical construct of the svarajati, the nRtta for the svara passages seemed to lack the customary crispness that one expects from Smt. Govind.

[cienu]

Thank you Ravi. Wonderful review.

[rajeshnat]

Smt. Govind excelled in her depiction of the procession – which is precisely what the mallAri is supposed to do. A small crib was the profusion of zig-zag movements which I don't like.

Ravi
A great review( muses that had few fuse breaks). I thought zig-zag queue is very much part of procession, possibly it is not a thing in Pomona temple in NJ , but very much a parthasarathy temple phenomenon in triplicane.

I do know that Smt Govind is one of your favourites , it looks like you had more expectation on this artist.

[arasi]

Ravi,
I did not see the dance but you, the master, brought the performance to me with your beautiful writing.
When it comes to dance and sAhityam (without any doubt), you are a true rasikA and a wizard with words

[mahavishnu]

very nice review, Ravi. I really enjoyed reading it.
Excellent choice of music to dance to. I have never seen/heard of anyone dancing to the Kamakshi swarajati.

[keerthi]

mahavishnu,

Look here.

[Ranganayaki]

Thanks for the pains you've taken to share your experience and your views, Ravi, I really enjoyed reading it. Can you explain how ka and ma bring together Saraswati and Lakshmi ? Like Ramesh, I hadn't heard either of anyone dancing to this Swarajati.

[rshankar]

Thank you all for your kind words.
Rajesh, you are correct...I do have high expectations of Smt. Govind. But I do realize that I am coming across like one of those teachers who tell their student, 'I gave you a B+/A-, because, good though this paper is, I am sure you're capable of better'....unfortunate, but still true....

Ranganayaki, as I understand it, one explanation for the name kAmAkshi is one who has sarasvati (kA) and lakshmi (mA) for her eyes (akshi)....kA means sarasvati, and mA means lakshmi (hence, mAdhava - husband or dhavA of lakshmi or mA, a name for vishNu...also used very beautifully by P. Sivan in his composition praising vishNu and Siva alternately, mA ramaNan, umA ramaNan)

Arasi - it's you and the other poets who are wizards with your words, and not I!

[Umesh]

Great summary, Ravi. Like others have said, there's little I can add to that comprehensive "musing", but I have a couple additional comments.

For one, the orchestra didn't really evoke anything in me. The blasting audio didn't help things either. I am unable to comment on technical virtuosity, but something was off from the start- I think I saw them fidgeting with some audio plug that had fallen out and making adjustments just as the show began! Also, there was a bit of miscommunication in the Thillana. I wish Deepu Nair had sung instead of playing the violin- he did so when Smt. Priyadarsini came to town a couple years ago, and it was beautiful.

In regards to the dancing, I agree wholeheartedly with what Ravi has written. The Bhairavi swarajati is a grand piece and one that I am always excited to see performed (aside: I first saw this danced by Hema Malini in that miniseries, Noopur), but that crispness we have come to expect from PG just wasn't there. With such beautiful angashuddham, I felt she teased us with just one jathi! The swara passages were smooth, but there wasn't much solid nrtta, and the adavus, besides being somewhat repetitive, seemed light-footed at times; kudhittumettu was more mettu, less kudhi. Nonetheless, when she arrived at a pose suddenly, as she often likes to do, it's as if she turned into a stone carving on the gopuram... absolutely striking!

The MSS classic was sensitive and beautiful, and the padam and javali appeared to be audience pleasers. No matter what the stayi, she always seems to know how to manipulate her eyes, posture, and hastas in just the right ways. PG has always been strong in her various interpretations of a single line of text, and these pieces were no exceptions. There's still a lot to learn from this artist.