BHARAT KALACHAR
Visual poetry at its aesthetic best
RUPA SRIKANTH
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There was one defining moment in which music and dance joined with combustible energy.
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PHOTO: K.N.Muralidharan.
RICH IN BHAVA: Priyadarsini Govind.
Priyadarsini Govind has gained a unique stature as one who can move the audience with either the depth of her emotive prowess or the lyrical beauty of her movements. Her dance is visual poetry at its aesthetic best. But Priyadarsini's appeal is not only from the outside. Her interpretations are so personal that she creates an experience out of every performance.
Priyadarsini's trademark is an understated style. A typical moment came early in the programme in the musical prelude to the invocation in Amritavarshini raga, Adi talam. As a Khanda Nadai was played on the mridangam, she stepped out quietly from the wings and froze in an anjali position on the cross with her head down in silent prayer. Bathed in a pool of yellow, she conveyed a sense of stillness so eloquently. There was one defining moment that evening. It occurred during the Purananuru excerpt where a mother goes to the battlefield in search of her young son who was reported to have been killed by an arrow on his back. With trepidation she turns him over to find that the arrow had pierced his chest after all, and that he had died facing his enemy squarely. There was a fleeting moment of pride on the woman's face, before the mother in her takes over and she weeps over the child's inert body. That one sensitive moment spoke volumes of this dancer's sensitivity. Predictably, there were no dry eyes in the audience.
In what may easily be the best of the season, music and dance came together with combustible synergy. Each member of the orchestra was as involved, beginning with Preethi Mahesh, vocal, whose powerful rendition enhanced the programme. The others were, Shajilal (nattuvangam), Sikhamani (violin) and Shakthivel Muruganandam (mridangam).
With the theermanams composed by mridangam maestro G.Vijayaraghavan, Priyadarsini presented an old favourite varnam, `Swamiyai Azhaithodi Vaa' in ragamalika, Adi talam, a composition of K.N. Dhandayuthapani Pillai. The complexities did not stop with the jathis, it continued into the arudis and the thattumettu that changed every time in the first half. From the full-sit mandi adavu the dancer leapt into the air with knees bent in the utplavana adavu defying gravity and the science of limb movement. Most impressive was Priyadarsini's humility, without which the rest would have had no meaning.
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