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Rare melodies from Manipur
LEELA VENKATARAMAN
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LEC-DEM At the Krishna Gana Sabha Natyakala Conference, Preeti Patel provided glimpses of Manipuri music and dance.
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Vibrant and exotic: Preeti Patel.
If very little is known about Manipuri outside its home environs, barring the exotic costumes, even less is known about the music. Thanks to Manipuri dancer Preeti Patel, the Natya Kala Conference audience was provided telling glimpses of music/dance
from Manipur with demonstrations by artists hailing from the heart of the region with its performing art traditions. Preeti emphasised how unlike other dance forms journeying from temple ritual and court entertainment to proscenium performance, Manipuri as a still vibrant living tradition deeply connected with temple ritual and inter-woven with the life style of a people, has never felt the urge to look for performance space outside its own soil.
The ‘Hiya He…’ invocation with the tonic and accompaniment provided on the stringed instrument the Pena, was sung by artists Priya Rani and Monang Sena, the extraordinary voice production coming straight from spaces deep inside the body with the shivering notes, the graces, the Yodelling and the pulsating involvement sending goose pimples down the listener’s spine. An amazing blend of the ancient and the modern, Manipuri combines the old tradition connected with animistic worship evoking a mystic divinity, with the superimposed Vaishnavism-inspired tradition of Nat Sankeertan and Manipuri Ras evolving during the time of King Bhagyachandra with the Govindji temple established in 1779.
Brilliant and gentle
Preeti, a disciple of late Guru Bipin Singh demonstrated a glimpse of Ras with an Ashtapadi ‘Chandanacharchita (in the old style composed by late Guru Amubi Singh) while brilliant snatches of Manipuri Sankeertan involving the percussion instrument, the Pung (referred to as the soul of Manipuri), with examples of Pung Raga (interesting concept of melody on the percussion) and tala (commonly in 4,6,7,and 8 beats), were demonstrated by Ojha Ratan Singh. Next came fleeting images from Pung Cholam with the artist simultaneouly playing Pung and dancing blending movements of gentle grace with acrobatic cart-wheeling leaps.
While the Ashtapadi singing by Priya was redolent with emotion, the most delectable part of the morning was in the presentation of the older tradition with snatches of the Lai Haroaba, where the birth and creation of the entire human body becomes the theme of dance, the dancer’s singing with entire body, from head to toe moving in snake like curved grace in the formation of the number 8, meant to resemble and evoke the mythical serpent the Pakhamba. Bites followed from narrative traditions of Manipur with the Moirang Parba story of Khamba Thoibi rendered with the narrator playing the Pena and having a dialogue with the other actor Rani. But for this critic, nothing could beat the resonance of the Yakairol, the early morning wake up call (suprabhatam) of the Gods, which in tonal quality of chanting is special. How the male and naturally high pitched female soprano voices combine and harmonise in the singing is intriguing. And interestingly, Preeti in productions based on contemporary themes like terrorism and women’s fight for survival, has harnessed traditional Manipuri forms, retained in unsullied purity.
Performing grace
Mohiniyattom dancer Kshemavathy is a wonderful dancer to watch even at this age. But her lecture/demonstration became more a performance than one probing the subject of ‘Sangeetam in Dance.’ She spoke of the old style in the kutcheri tradition using Keralal ‘vaitaris’ and mentioned old Mohiniyattom performers as even dancing to the Hindustani ghazal.
Kavalam Narayana Panikkar’s Ganapati invocation in Puraneer ragam was danced with nothing said about the nature of the regional ragam.
Kshemavathy.
The Saraswati homage in Ragamalika was addressed as an example of items set to music in Carnatic ragams. Instead of a full performance of the lyric, the artist could have talked about how the Carnatic ragas were being adapted to the needs of Mohiniyattom movement. For example, Begade generally quite strident in gait was used with long drawn notes evoking a very different mood and suiting the stylistic andolikas of the dance movements revelling in slow spun Mohiniyattom grace.
Communicative with its mimetic intensity was Kshemavathy’s rendition of the padam “Krishna Nee ennai aryilaa”. But the mention of Kavalam Narayana Panikkar’s attempts at making Mohiniyattom totally based on Sopanam music was substantiated by no explanation of the nature of the music. Perhaps the dancer was avoiding controversies for whatever one may say of Sopanam could be taken as both truth and falsehood, for no two persons in Kerala agree on what Sopana is.
Animated post-lecture discussions for both sessions met with spirited interventions about Sopana with flautist Rajan making the final statement that what was just a regional prayog or convention of rendering Carnatic music was being made to sound like a separate genre of music, which he implied was just misplaced enthusiasm for regional identity.
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Friday Review
Bangalore
Chennai and Tamil Nadu
Delhi
Hyderabad
Thiruvananthapuram
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