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Music Season
BHARAT KALACHAR
Kaleidoscopic emotions
RUPA SRIKANTH
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Meenakshi Chitharanjan’s new production had all the key ingredients — excellent music, sparkling rhythm and well-trained disciples.
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Photo: R. Ragu
Appealing: Meenakshi Chitharanjan.
Excellent music, sparkling rhythm and well-trained dancers were the key ingredients in Meenakshi Chitharanjan’s new choreography, ‘Lahari,’ A Flood of Divine Bliss. That a production could be appealing in the absence of a storyline or fireworks or even dramatic characterisations is a remarkable feat in itself.
It was a simple compilation — of kritis (Sringara Lahari, Neelambari, Adi, Linga Raju) and verses from the Soundarya Lahari and the Sivananda Lahari. Good music and sincere dance, presented well, is sure to appeal.
While the group choreographies were interesting in the play of numbers and patterns, the solo (‘Ashta-rasa Devi’) was enhanced by special theermanams composed by Umayalpuram Sivaraman. S.Rajeswari’s music compositions also added to the ‘rasa anubhava.’ But there was more — the strong musical team.
With Pandanallur Pandian delivering theermanams in a wonderfully firm yet mellow tone and Kuldip Pai unleashing full-throated melody supported by the experts — K.Srinivasan (violin), A.N.Srinivasan (flute) and Mayuram Shankar (mridangam), every composition was savoured many times over.
The opening ‘Pravesha Sollukattu’ (misram) and the concluding tillana (Amritavarshini, khanda jathi Triputa talam, S.Rajeswari) were the group numbers performed with confidence and accuracy by Meenakshi and her students — Aparna, Preethi, Sowmya and Harini. One would urge the young aspirants to develop a sharper body language and deeper araimandis though.
Meenakshi’s solos, Sringara Lahari and the Ashtarasa Devi, were handled with gentle expertise. The latter, choreographed in a varnam format (ragamalika, Adi), had an enjoyable musical score and Kuldip took it further with his inspired rendering. Succinct abhinaya interludes dealt with Devi’s kaleidoscopic emotions vis a vis Siva. The trikalam theermanam and the others that followed were enjoyable in the interplay of beats, but its racy speed perhaps explained Meenakshi’s fondness for footwork in samapada.
An unusual part of the menu was a verse from the Sivananda Lahari in which Adi Sankara compares and contrasts Siva to a peacock, calling them both blue-throated.
An old student, Aishwarya Dhanush, joined her guru Meenakshi in this piece. Dressed appropriately in peacock blue, she essayed the role of the peacock most conscientiously with delicate and graceful movements; Meenakshi as Siva was assertive. The landscape was a colourful one — the contrast between them was striking even as the author underlined their similarity.
This programme marked a defining moment for Meenkashi as it was the first after her mother’s passing away barely a fortnight before. Here was a determined dancer, who was determined to continue in a way that would make her mother proud.
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Music Season
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