A fresh breeze blows
LEELA VENKATARAMAN
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Kathak dancer Nandini Sinha charmed the audience through her highly communicative recital at the India International Centre this past week.
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Nandini is one of those rare Kathak dancers to have a really professional musical accompaniment
ELECTRIC PERFORMER Nandini Sinha, a disciple of Vijay Shankar, showed precision and clarity of footwork in her dance.
Not familiar on the Delhi Kathak scene, Nandini Sinha dancing at the India International Centre charmed the audience through her highly communicative recital. This disciple of Vijay Shankar, later trained under Pandit Birju Maharaj, has obviously gained in breadth of vision and confidence from her years abroad dancing and working. Apart from the precision and clarity of technique and footwork, a stately stage presence and ability to involve the audience in what she is doing make her an electric performer.
The Siva stuti established her prowess straight away, later reinforced by the impeccable tisra, chatushra, khanda and mishra combinations of rhythm woven into the Teen tala nritta. The ιlan of the breezy performance had a lot to do with the tonal variance and accenting changes of her parhant also. Not many dancers of the day linger overlong on vilambit laya in thaat, amad and tukras and tatkar, gradually going on to the madhya laya. Parikrama, the last item gave a refreshing garb to the usual gat nikas and paran sequences in drut laya, strung on to a narrative on Kathak from then to now.
History of dance
While executing a ladi or a ginti tihai, one could see the immaculate laya. Beginning with the kathakar's (storyteller's) days, she went on to dance in the temple, after which the Moghul court influence brought in the element of sparkling virtuosity with the thumri and ghazal and tarana.
The bhakti element based on a Rajasthani folk tune, the kajri, the thumri "Sab Banthan" and the ghazal were all danced with flair, and while the dancer had no problems in conveying her message, one would still put the nritta finesse on a higher plane. The abhinaya has scope for more internalised depth.
With an excellent team of musicians in the melodious singer Subhasis Bhattacharya, tabla player Protik Mukherjee and sitar player Neyogi, Nandini is one of those rare Kathak dancers to have a really professional musical accompaniment - something wanting in a great many Kathak performances in Delhi.
The one totally unprofessional touch was the dancer constantly trying to see that the little centrepiece on the forehead remained in place. Either do away with the ornament or see that it is pinned on to the hair in a secure fashion.
An evening at the Habitat Centre mounted by Raag (Repertoire of Art and Artistes Group) was a shade different from the general run of programmes, with Bharatanatyam dancer Geeta Chandran and singer Mahema Casewa sharing the stage.
Geeta shone in her solo items. Both the Govind vandana in Nattai based on Haveli Sangeet with the jatis connecting the interpretative sequences, and the Meera bhajan "Baso more nainan mein Nandlal" were rendered with total involvement.
Sudha Raghuraman's soulful singing (on tape) provided a bhakti filled take-off point, in the Meera bhajan.
Female divinity
In a different tone of power and female divinity was the Aigiri Nandini hymn, the strong destructive power of the Devi in the verse "Aisu Manasu manasu ... " particularly resonant in the taut Bharatanatyam postures.
The opening item "Wo kala ek bansuri wala sudh bisra gaya mori re" did not quite come off in the very short alternating song and interpretative dance passages, continuity marred by the constant shift of accent from singer to dancer.
Mahima's very melodious singing has what was labelled as an original style — the very structured rendition, particularly in the bhajan "Jinke hridaya Shree Ram base aur ko naam liyo naa liyo", redolent of the light music vein.
Even though the huge logo of the organisation as a backdrop was too fuzzy, the organisers deserve full marks for the way the evening was planned.
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