Bharatanatyam with a French flavour
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Raghunath Manet, whose Bharatanatyam recital in New Delhi was conducted by none other than the veteran Indira Rajan, is dramatic, innovative and talented, but he needn't take recourse to playing to the gallery, feels LEELA VENKATARAMAN.
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Raghunath Manet...a sense ofstyle and drama.
IT WAS a uniquely packaged Bharatanatyam performance at the mini hall of Alliance Francaise, jointly sponsored by the Alliance (Delhi) and Nimrana Foundation, and the final ovation from the audience with its sizeable percentage of foreigners, seemed never ending. Pondicherry-based Raghunath Manet, who has already earned the "Chevalier" honour from the French Ministry of Culture, is no mean dancer though his preference for the spectacular may make one wonder if such a talented artiste needs to take recourse to such overt playing to the gallery.
One cannot however, help acknowledging the dancer's sense of style right from the way the musicians Farida (singer), Madhu (mridangam), Iqbal (keyboard), Arul (ghatam) and Genovia (tanpura) made a formal entry after Manet's presentation of the Alarippu in tisram rendered to tape music with blended east/west vibes, to seat themselves ceremonially at the rear end of the stage in a neat row from one end to the other. In single glory, seated before a microphone in front of the stage on one side was the nattuvangam expert, who was none other than Indira Rajan herself.
"Ragasiya snegitane" started the vocalist in her melodious if falsetto voice, the song sung with a distinctly light classical filmy touch to it. Soon the words on whispers of sweet nothings in the night and "You bathe and I get wet" references highlighted the erotic sringar tone of the song. The next item saw Bharatanatyam at its best with Raghunath Manet and his female partner Subhasri Natarajan as a twosome performing Maharaja Swati Tirunal's Tillana in Dhanashri ragam. In covering stage space, and making use of levels in the seated and standing positions, and in the manner in which phrases like "Taanu Gaave Takata..." and "Padumanabha Tumhari Lila" were elaborated in the dance, the presentation left little to be desired. The two dancers had perfect understanding and the sundari neck movements and mei adavus at the beginning of the song were impressively synchronised. What with Indira Rajan's spirited nattuvangam, this was a pulsating number, well conceived for two.
Romantic note
The Siva Tandav dance by Raghunath based on Tamil verses - known and less known, began on a romantic note with the nayika appealing to the black bee to act as the messenger by conveying her lovelorn state to Lord Nataraja. ("Tillai Naadanidam En Nilai Sollu Karu Vande"). Following was a description of the beauty and magnificence of the Lord for which the textual base was a very old traditional Chidambaram shloka "Punitta Puruvam..." Parts of the text being just recited without being set to music made for some theatre, and the dramatic pauses in the dance added their own impact. "Tathai Enru Tat Thai Enru Aduvaar", the dance of Siva with bold and strong leg stretches and veeshara adavu, and frozen stances brought out the grandeur of the Lord's performance, the profusely sweating body of the dancer investing a certain urgency to the dance.
The musical interlude with each musician given a solo slot could have given Indira Rajan with her masterful nattuvangam, a more prominent role. Raghunath's stint on the veena was too frenzied, the excessive strumming not bringing out the tonal beauty of an instrument, which in a slow raga alapana can be quite haunting in its impact. A slow bit followed by the tanam type of playing would have been more fully illustrative of the potential in the instrument. There was also a nattuvam/Konakkol type of presentation of mnemonics by Raghunath with dramatic fractional interval interventions by the percussionists. A frothy interlude, its drama and style were much loved by the audience. The show ended with Raghunath dancing elementarily, with his feet planted on the rim of a brass plate, Kuchipudi fashion. For one thing, one is familiar with far greater expertise in this tarangam type of performance, and for another, Raghunath's considerable abilities hardly require this gimmick.
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