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Lost art regained Perini dancers and

The Telugu University, the department of Culture and Cultural Council organised a huge show for three days at Warangal and Hanumakonda at historical locations like Kakatiya fort and Thousand-Pillar Temple recently. A special stage was put up for various dances to accommodate the large number of audience. Governor N.D. Tiwari inaugurated the festival. . Various Andhra Natya schools that came into existence under the direction of Nataraja Ramakrishna also regrouped and came to present their shows.

Annabathula Lakshmi Mangatayaru, granddaughter of Annabathula Bulivenkatratnam presented Gollakalapam with her students. Artistes belonging to Mummidivaram (East Godavary District), who specialised in temple dances, presented their show. Kalakrishna presented Navajardana Parijatham concentrating more on the Virahotkanthita part of Satyabhama.

Andhra Natyam being performed at the festival.

As some felt that there was less space for ‘Perini Siva Tandavam’, the organisers arranged for three more shows of it, as it belonged to that land. It was an experience to watch this art under the dilapidated monument of the Orugallu fort where it had flourished once.

Snehalatha and party reflected Andhra Natya sampradayam of temple dances. ‘Agama Nartanam’, and ‘Asthana Nartanam’ . Ratna kumar of Karimanagar district’s tribal belt presented Navajanardana Parijatham and received encomiums for learning this classical art. Nataraja Ramakrishna was a personified figure of all happiness, for he saw, in the evening of his life, what he wanted to see - a plant that grew into a tree. As part of his effort to retrieve and reconstruct some of these lost forms, Nataraja Ramakrishna spent almost four decades meeting many women dancers in their Sixties, and learning from their experiences and skills. It’s sad that these women were struggling to make a living. A few of them were Sanskrit scholars in the sense they studied the language to know the depth of the meaning of a varnam or any scholarly piece to properly translate into a visual treat - Abhinaya. There were artistes who could present the entire Adhyatma Ramayanam in dance art. They had a fund of lyrics full of classicism, varnams, javalis, padams including those of Kshetrayya and also kalapas. Some of the artistes were a walking encyclopedia of dance art. The pity is that neither the Academies nor individuals cared little for preserving them, for posterity. Credit goes to Nataraja Ramakrishna and his team who toured these areas, held meetings and gathered some information about the texts and performance techniques. And Ramakrishna, for whom book writing is second nature, recorded the whole thing and formed dances out of these available formats of temple dances and created a repertoire and even a syllabus (later). He named the whole compilation as ‘Andhra Natyam’. Then in parallel Ramakrishna worked on the ‘Saivaite’ dance forms which are more virile in nature, as they were sprouted out of Veera Saivam that flourished under the rule of Rani Rudrama. Some of the posturing of these dances was sculpted on temples like Ramappa, near Warangal. These postures were the base for Nataraja Ramakrishna to rebuild the virile dance called Perini. Word ‘Perini’ is said to have born out of ‘Prerana’.

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