MUSIC ACADEMY
Outstanding nritta
GOWRI RAMNARAYAN
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The footwork impressed with precision and stamina.
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Photo: V. Ganesan
Mythili Prakash.
‘Nathanai azhaithu va, sakhiye’ — as Khambodi streamed into the hall with this varnam in Aditya Prakash’ strong, melody-steeped voice, tunefully supplemented by Ishwar Ramakrishnan (violin) and T. Sashidhar (flute), the audience was beguiled into romance.
Mythili Prakash’s abhinaya was marked by decisiveness. No frayed ends, uncertain taperings, nor overstretching. Her taste maintained the fine balance of the uttama nayika who feels deeply, but is not betrayed into unseemly excess.
The hastas were definitive and connotative. No fluff, nothing overdone by face and glance either. For example, the line ‘Kadhalai Arindavar’ had intense feelings seeping through the lower sancharas of Khambodi in her ruminative questionings.
The nayika’s moods swing from pride in her lover’s stature, wonder at his valour, awe at his wisdom, and sorrow in his continuing to stay away. Mythili depicted them all in an unhampered flow of sanchari bhavas.
When abhinaya scored
She also created the personality of the nayika with effective shades of yearning – anxious, forlorn, irked at delays, but also expecting to be united with her lover.
Her abhinaya breathed this confidence even when expressing annoyance at the lover’s hardheartedness. Nor was there any confusion as to the character’s motivations. The nayika’s adoration for Muruga did not slip into the devotee’s bhakti surrender.
Take the sequence of Muruga becoming his father’s guru as he explains the significance of the pranava mantra to Siva.
There was vatsalya here, and a father’s pride at his son’s precocity, but seen through the nayika’s eyes to highlight her lover’s prowess.
But it was Mythili’s nritta that stood out for its precision, unflagging energy, and splendour. The mnemonics were a tonal treat, highlighting a particular tone and phrase in each sequence to characterise and distinguish it from others. They were recited like poetry by Jayashree Ramanathan (nattuvangam), backed by adroit mridangam (V. Vedakrishnan).
Mythili merged effortlessly into the rhythms, her whole body attuned to the tones, modulations and frequencies of the jati, from attami to tattumettu. Every one of her high speed kitatakatarikitatoms in the charanam was flawlessly done.
The drawback in the performance as a whole was that the singing and the dancing were not dovetailed, the music often going into its own space unmindful of the needs of bhava depiction.
Another was that the dancer stuck to known territory in abhinaya. There were no surprises, no sudden heightening of mood. The opening mallari used every part of the stage in movements, but did not anchor a centrality, or centrifugal force.
Mythili’s post-varnam Ashtapadi ‘Rase Harimiha’ brought a pastoral lilt to the stage. The flute came into its own in Mishra Khammaj, as did the drum. There was clarity in the two characters shaped with opposite moods — male and female Radha and Krishna — one exultant in loving every gopi, the other disturbed by jealousy.
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