Stamp of a master
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Despite the unrelenting weather the three-day dance festival drew large crowds.
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This time around, Jalavihar — the rock-cut stage premises beside the waters of the Hussain Sagar lake — played host to the three-day Kuchipudi ballet festival close on the heels of Dasara. It was no surprise that these ballets, coming as they did from the Vempati stable (Chennai) were real crowd pullers despite the heavy downpour.
Under the shelter of the flimsy umbrellas, ardent fans of guru Vempati Chinna Satyam, stood their ground savouring the Kiratarjuneeyam ballet on the second day. Gopika Geetam marked the birthday celebrations of the guru. Prior to the commencement of the dance drama, which went late into the drizzling night, Dr. Vempati's former students paid him tribute through their own performances, which ate up into the schedule of the main ballet.
Anupama Mohan and her disciples presented the guru vandana dance (in Malayalam) specially penned in his honour. The lyrics, though in part good, delved too much into personal relationships and the dance lacked coordination at times with a nattuvanar forgetting his lines. Madavapeddi Murthy and his troupe (of Shiva Academy) also gave a brief, recorded performance that was a far cry from traditional Kuchipudi. The Bhajagovindam recitation and abhinaya was set to a thillana as chorus — a novel concept that gelled with the highly esoteric verse. The mangalam was a dance display to pure music in place of jatis.
Fluid narrative
Gopika Krishna began on a narrative note to cut short the lengthy Bhagavatha puranam of Krishna's childhood and its consequence and come to the point in question — his relationship and its significance in the scheme of life at Brindavan. The narrative flowed through two sets of dancers — a Brahmin (Ravi Vempati) and his staff bearers alongside a group of four female dancers. The former was also the spokesman while the latter werelike translations of the narrative into dance form. Excellent sync marked the movements of both groups of artistes on stage with their distinct ahaarya (costume).
The narrative introduced the audience to the coming of Krishna at Brindavan and on stage. It was disappointing to watch a girl impersonate Krishna, for Gita Madhuri who essayed the main role lacked the personality to carry it with ιlan.
Despite her vivacious movements and abhinaya, Gita was not able to carry the Krishna role with conviction and sent out signals of Krishna as an effeminate lover boy. The group of gopikas were markedly different from the earlier group of dancers in their dress, which was more akin to the cowherd community of northern India.
The live orchestra was the highlight of the ballet with Sangeetha Rao's excellent music ably set to tunes by Vanaja and D.V.S. Sastry. Sudhakar on the veena especially in the interludes and Nagarajan on the flute vied with each other in melody and clarity that made its presence felt. Percussion by Suryakanth was up to the mark and nattuvangam by guru Vempati was ably assisted by son Ravi.
The sweetness of Sringara lahari flowed into the footwork and vice-versa making for a memorable scene. Despite the near perfect frames, a discerning but ardent Vempati follower could not have failed to notice the choreography which showed up sketches of an alien hand other than that of the veteran guru who was said to be the choreographer.
The underlying sweetness and grace in Vempati's style of dancing was conspicuous by its absence in this particular ballet. The dancers did justice to their respective roles both in mime and nritya aspects but the soul was missing. Perhaps, the artistes needed to merge in their characters to recreate his magic.
R.K.
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