Spontaneity spells class
LEELA VENKATARAMAN
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If veteran Uma Sharma took the audience by storm in a duet with Shujaat Husain Khan, young Snehasini charmed her way into their hearts.
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Photo: V.V. Krishnan
Line of control Snehasini performing Odissi in New Delhi. Seen in the picture are Guru Madhavi Mudgal, Mandakini Swain (vocal), Maheshwar Rao (harmonium) and Javed (sitar).
Formal accuracy and carefully tailored performances have become so much the order of the day in dance that one has accepted ‘upaj’ or on-the-spot creativity as part of the dance rhetoric, more talked about than seen. Which is why the unst
ructured spontaneity of dancer Uma Sharma and sitar maestro Shujaat Husain Khan combining in a jugalbandi was such a rare treat.
The occasion at the Stein auditorium was to mark the Annual Day of Global Cancer Concern India (GCCI), which over the years has tried through various means to ameliorate the trauma and suffering of the cancer stricken.
The formal part of the programme with Gursharan Kaur, Prime Minister’s wife, as chief guest had a short video screening to illustrate the work done by the GCCI, with many patients bravely fighting the disease present in the audience.
This was followed by a short Kathak solo presentation by Uma, with her oft-rendered and popular Vallabhacharya’s “Adharam Madhuram” describing the captivating quality in every feature of Krishna, which along with Guru Arjundev’s “Bali Bali Jaaoon” gave great scope to the dancer to delight the audience with her gats, bhav and chal(s), the poetic bits full of the lajja andaaz so much a part of the Kathak dancer’s armoury. To follow was a tara
na in Kalavati into which the dancer had woven in the subtleties of Chand and poetry.
But the real climax of the evening was in the jugalbandi, which came after Ustad Shujaat Husain Khan’s piercingly sweet Yaman, the piece de resistance of his father the late Ustad Vilayat Khan. With verses from Kabir and Amir
Khusro spun in and with son Azaan Khan joining on the guitar and vocal, Uma with her effervescing abhinaya responded in spontaneous ebullience. It was as if the camaraderie between musician and dancer had removed the last bastions of self-centred aloofness and released an inner liberator in the artistes, helping create real magic.
Playing and singing with mellifluous sweetness Shujaat’s “Patta bola Vrikse” the simple words containing the essence of the ephemeral nature of life “Yahi jagat ki reeti ha, ek aaye, ek jaaye” saw Uma at her interpretative best. The varieties of chal and rhythmic twists she wove into the main refrain were a gut response of joy, not rehearsed. Khusro’s love poetry saw the dancer in great form and even when totally unplanned verses suddenly sprang from Shujaat’s memory, Uma was ready for it. With each artiste in a giving and sharing mood, one sparked the other and Uma’s dance just happened, transcending all the conventions of formal presentations. Upaj at its best!
Clean lines
Odissi movement requiring the head, the torso and the body below the waist to deflect in opposite directions to the part above and below, needs a fluidity running from head to toe, not to appear jerky and this takes a long time to master.
Not surprisingly, as a student of Madhavi Mudgal, A. Snehasini’s dance showed clean lines in her recital at the India International Centre. Both mangalacharan with Ganesh stuti and the pallavi in Mohana showed the dancer’s ease in the nritta part. Graceful and correct, Snehasini’s slight figure moved in assured rhythm. The dancer has even done her own choreography to a pallavi in Madhumat Sarang composed by her father. In the interpretative part as seen from the rendition of the ashtapadi “Lalita Lavang Lata”, more experience is needed to go beyond just pleasantness and to bring out the intensity of sringar, with the man/nature association so central to the poetry of Jayadeva.
Mandakini Swain the dancer’s sister as vocalist, while melodious in the central octave, needs to work on the lower and upper octaves. Sound and light unusually for the India International Centre, played hide and seek, now off and now on.
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