Toronto's Indian soul
LEELA VENKATARAMAN
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Kalanidhi's "A Century of Indian Dance" witnessed a number of interesting performances. Here is a glimpse.
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IN STREE VESHAM Canada-based dancer Ravi Mony as Satyabhama.
Impressive audience turnout with a fair non-Indian element at Toronto's Premier Dance Theatre during Kalanidhi's marathon 10-day International Dance Festival on "A Century of Indian Dance" (accent on Bharatanatyam, Odissi and Kuchipudi) created an optimistic glow of our dances finding acceptance across borders of time and space. But the optimism dimmed somewhat, experiencing the wafer-thin morning attendance at Harbourfront Centre for the very informative and varied conference sessions, despite over 60 schools of Indian Dance operating in Toronto alone with about 100 students in each! "Efforts to associate York University with its Dance Faculty failed, for they were not interested in Indian Dance," said Sudha Khandwani, Artistic Director of Kalanidhi Fine Arts, her frail body packed with grim determination and passion for promoting Indian dances in Canada.
The mind-numbing variety of performances projected a vast range from the orthodox to hybrid art, a natural product in a multi-cultural society. With its customary accent on meticulous technique, even Kalakshetra demonstrated a new emphasis on Bharatanatyam solo and duet with Shijith Nambiar partnered by two female dancers - different from the spectacle associated with its dance drama presentations.
Toronto's Janak Khendry Dance Company in its unusual group offer of "Gayatri" sensitively stuck to unostentatious simplicity in choreography, thereby striking the right chord of quietude and sanctity of a `Gupt mantra' - the meticulous presentation geometry in four scenes beginning with the awakening of Gayatri. Painstakingly researched, the treatment blended the ritualistic, the visual and the aural resonance of the recited hymn, in an involved rendition to well arranged music - Elangovan's melodic singing and Hari Krishnan's nattuvangam standing out.
Arguably one of the highlights was Purnima presented by inDance, Hari Krishnan's imaginatively conceived multi-media production, a throwback to the Devadasi days of yore visualised through a suite of compositions starting with a Salam Daru, followed by a rare Chakravakam Swarajati (perhaps a Tamil translation of the Quartette Ponnaiyya's Telugu original, deduce scholars) with the nayika expressing her love for King Ugra Pandya, with a concluding Sabda Pallavi (Tillana) in Anandabhairavi and Mangalam dedicated to Muruga and Martanda Bhairava Tondaiman of Pudukkottai (erstwhile princely state). Capturing the court and temple ambience for the scintillatingly rendered Swarajati by the excellently matched male/female duo of Hari Krishnan and Srividya Natarajan, was Cylla von Tiedemann's backdrop visuals, comprising glimpses of the Kumbakonam temple, the 1000-pillared hall and temple inscriptions.
Ecstatic dance
Exemplifying Guru Kelucharan's legacy and vision of Odissi was Sujata Mohapatra's ecstatic dance - the sheer poetry of movement sending the audience of different hues, to raptures. Very different in its contemporary tone was Kuala Lumpur's Sutra Dance Theatre's group Odissi entitled `Spellbound', Ramli Ibrahim's designing of the Mukhari Pallavi, Ashta shambhu and "Kadamba Bane Bangsi" in its powerful visual imagery showing how choreographic imagination can bestow on delicate vernacular cultures a contemporariness. Orissa Dance Academy's presentation led by Guru Gangadhar Pradhan epitomised group discipline - though the garish costume colours needed toning. The delightful Gotipua boys brought down the house in applause.
From the banal (Usha Kalaniketan's sub-standard Mohini Bhasmasura) to sophisticated presentations, Kuchipudi had all representations. It was heart warming to see five disciples of Vempati Chinna Satyam, scattered in cities of the States, unite in synchronicity of movement like peas in a pod, presenting their guru's work. Anuradha Nehru's dignified interpretation of the Annmacharya Kriti in Abheri "Palukutenalatalli" was a highlight. Most unexpected was the elegant Stree Vesham (getting to be rare even in India, by the Toronto based dancer, also a Vempati disciple, Ravi Mony, playing Satyabhama.
In Contemporary dance, `Loha', with Roger Sinha's bold and assertive dance and Natasha Bakht's silken grace created an electricity of opposite energies, both using Bhartanatyam inspired movement metamorphosing into contemporary vocabulary. More inward looking was Nova Bhattacharya, also Bharatanayam trained, moving in perfect spatial understanding with her male partner Lous Laberge Cote, strong and graceful, in `Lingua Franca.'
The high voltage energy from a true interaction of cultural bonhomie was in Tribhang's Bharatanatyam and South African dances juxtaposition and crossovers.
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