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MUSIC ACADEMY

Photos: V. Ganesan

HIGH CALIBRE: Roja Kannan.

After starting with her guru’s composition of Nandichol and Siva Dhyanam set to raga Vasant, Roja proceeded to the centrepiece of Ponniah Pillai’s navaragamalika varnam, ‘Saami Ninne Kori’ set to Rupakam. The message of the nayika who has lost her heart to Tanjapuri Vasa was communicated with dignity in a savoured leisurely fashion with the interpretative part enhanced through fine sancharis.

Rama Vaidyanathan.

While the dancer’s abhinaya facility was evident, the rhythm-correct dancing, in the drut passages, lacked articulated geometrical clarity in movement, looking hurried. This did not take away from the quality of the sparkling teermanams recited with authority by guru Adyar Lakshmanan, full of a musicality coming from the organic growth of the rhythmic interlude, where the arithmetic of numbers becomes poetry. Some of the contemporary teermanams have the dazzling cleverness without the aesthetics at times. The varnam rose to a high note of climax in the charanam, ‘Satileni Kalyani’.

The purely interpretative part of the recital spoke, beginning with the Kshetragna padam in Anandabhairvai, ‘Emani Thelpudu’ portraying the separation pangs of the proshitapatika, temporarily bereft of her husband away on work, the internalised abhinaya full of conviction. The slow pace of the song, sung with feeling by Radha, became a metaphor epitomising the drag of time as the nayika in her loneliness reminisces on the moments of his leave taking. Striking a contrasting mood was the javali, a Swati Tirunal composition in Behag, ‘Saramaina’ projecting the duped and angry khandita nayika.

Roja concluded with the tillana in Sankarabharanam, a composition of Moolaiveetu Rangaswamy Nattuvanar. Again the manner in which each karvai forms one unit with one movement idea from an adavu taken to the finish giving this genre of the margam a definite identity, is not always seen in the choreography of tillanas now.

The Bharatanatyam recital by Rama Vaidyanathan, had two main participants — one the dancer herself and the other G.S.Rajan, flautist and music composer for all items barring the varnam.

Heralding the start with strongly rendered Nandichol syllables followed by Swati Tirunal’s “Nrityati Shambhashiromani” set to a Sankarabharanam score by Rajan, Rama presented her centrepiece viz. the Varnam Viriboni, Pachimiriyam Adiyappiah’s masterpiece.

The words addressed to the Nayaka are by the Dootika strongly arguing the case of her friend ‘that flowerlike girl’ who has lost her heart to him, urging that he respond.

The nritta sequences contributed by Karaikkudi Krishnamurty with Karaikkudi Sivakumar who did the nattuvangam, had the dance visualisation by Rama.

Rama’s dance brilliance and movement ideas spanning stage space with light-footed leaps, and impeccable rhythmic control notwithstanding, there is a workmanlike authority about the knife-edged precision, which tends to intimidate. A little more of softness would enhance greatly the appeal of her Bharatanatyam, which of late has been reaching new heights.

In the interpretative part of the varnam, singer Sushant Parambath in the permutations woven round each musical line, tended in his free-wheeling musical imagination to stray away completely from the main structure and format of the composition, which in a varnam has an element of protocol.

And then Rama’s highlighting just the word ‘Sarasoodau’ which was sung with elaborations, leaving out the full musical statement, is again not conventionally seen in the orthodox Bharatanatyam varnam delineation – though this was a practice amongst the Kalavantulu – devadasis of the Andhra region.

On the whole, one felt that a more persuasive appeal, not detracting from the confidence of the Dootika, would have carried the message of the words with greater impact.

The nayika playfully admonishing Krishna “Saddu Matalu beda” a Purandara Dasa composition set to music very aptly in Kalyani by Rajan was followed by the best item of the evening where Rama really came into her own in the Divya Prabandam Nammazhwar’s verse “Agalil Agalum Anugil Anugum.” G.S.Rajan’s Subhapantuvarali score suited the mood of the words ideally.

Here the poetry contemplates on the relationship of the micro to the macro and ponders on how the devotee is connected with the God who is so far and yet so near, who is everywhere and yet unseen, who is the father protector and yet one towards whom the devotee audaciously nurses feelings of desire.

An abstract theme, Rama interpreted it with feeling and subtlety.

The finale was marked by the Tillana in Behag, again a composition of Rajan set to chatusrajati attatalam where the concluding sahitya passage on India’s physical geography and rivers, carried the undulating movement of the waters in its gait making for a memorable finish.

A word about Sumod Sridhar’s sensitive touches on the mridangam, which enhanced the mood.

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