Lively and spontaneous
RUPA SRIKANTH
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Natyarangam's annual festival opens with Padma Subrahmanyam's exposition of Annamacharya's songs.
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PHOTOS: M. KARUNAKARAN
FELICITATION: Natyarangam honoured Guru M. K. Saroja (centre with citation). The other awardees with Mr. N. Murali, Managing Director, The Hindu, and president, the Music Academy, are: (Sitting) Nrithya Jagannathan and Sheejith Krishna. (Standing, extreme left) N. V. Balakrishnan.
Natyarangam in its pursuit of encouraging young talent and exploring new frontiers in dance has come back with another thematic Bharatanatyam festival, this time on Saint Poets of India. There are thirteen poets, to be presented by nine dancers over five days. The challenge for every dancer is to decipher the language and the flavour of the poets' compositions and to weave them into an aesthetic presentation. Each dancer has been allotted a resource person to help with the process. Necessarily, the participating dancers are mainly mature artists, but traditionally the inaugural performance has always been allotted to a senior dancer. This time it was Padma Subrahmanyam.
The poets are — Annamacharya, Narayana Bhattadri, Kabirdas and Surdas, Tukaram and Namdev, Poonthanam, Narsi Mehta, Azhwar and Nayanmar, Purandaradasa and Kanakadasa and Pothana. The dancers are — Padma, Shijith Nambiar, Chitra Chandrasekhar Dasarathy, Uma Namboodripad Sathya Narayanan, Sheejith Krishna, Mythili Prakash, Jayanthi Subramaniam, Aishwarya Nithyanand and Urmila Sathyanarayanan.
A conditioned mind is a dangerous thing. It restricts choices and defines what is acceptable and what is enjoyable in a narrow sense. So the very absence of the expected becomes unacceptable. In that sense, the rasika who came to the dance recital hoping to hear Annamacharya's popular sankirtanas, sung in the popular way, was disappointed. For Padma Subrahmanyam's two-hour presentation, `Annamayi Pratibha' was a personalised version of the saint-poet's contributions.
Padma's style is essentially informal, almost spontaneous and occasionally irreverent. She energises the space around her, with her quicksilver footwork and the inherent musicality of her movements. There can never be a dull moment in Padma's recital — she has mastered the art of combining mime, music, dance, drama and humour to create a colourful collage.
Annamacharya's vision
The narrative describing Annamacharya's vision of Lord Venkateswara with `Ippuditu Kalaganti' (Bowli), and his encounter with Goddess Alamelu in `Ammaku Tallapakka' in Sri Ragam was brilliantly woven together with the help of an abhang.
Padma Subrahmanyam.
But it was Padma's `Thiruveedhiula' in Gambhira Nattai that took the pride of place that evening.
Another gem was `Alarachanchaka Maina', an oonjal song set in a folk tune composed by late Shyamala Balakrishna. When the compositions are each tailored to be lively, there comes a time when one wishes for some stillness as well. Especially so, in a devotional context, where silence has so much meaning.
Gayathri Kannan did a commendable job of holding the music group together, though she was just short of her normal standard. She was ably assisted by Vidya Kalyanaraman, who filled any gaps admirably. Kannan on the veena and dolki pitched in with melody and percussion.
The other skilled musicians were: Nellai Balaji (mridangam), T.S.Babu (violin), Devaraj (flute), Harini (keyboard) and Sriram (rhythm pad).
Padma had composed the music and dance with Dr. Pappu Venugopala Rao was the resource person.
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