Young dancers festival does World Dance Day proud

It was the thirteenth consecutive Young Dancers’ Festival, the pivotal event of the two-day celebration heralding World Dance day mounted annually by Natya Viksha in collaboration with the India International Centre at the IIC premises. Curated by Geeta Chandran, the painstaking selection of young talents for the evening performances from across the country forms the central festival concern,  framed by a varying choice of out-of-performance talks and workshops, thereby preventing  ennui, keeping this festival  increa-singly attractive for enthusiastic audiences and participants over the years.

The Natya Vriksha Lifetime Achievement Award (introduced last year with the first awardee being Shanta Serbjeet Singh), in tune with its motto of being confined to non-dancers contributing to the dance scene, presented to Photographer Avinash Pasricha, could not have had a more worthy choice, for dance images caught through his lens have formed over the last half century, the major share of visual illustrations of Indian dance for the rest of the world.

That talent scouting, if diligent, can still yield  encouraging results was proved right from the start with Odissi performer Munami Nandi, a disciple of Sharmila Biswas. New to solo dance and the capital, her strong and sensual performance, very different from pretty Odissi one is used to, seems to stem as much from her own temperament as by the guru’s approach of looking at the dance in its traditional regional manifestations, sans all ornamentation – based on bols,  age old chantings without decorative musical flourishes. Abahoni with Sangita Gosain’s  musical expertise helping out with traditional lyrics comprised sanctifying the performance space with Rangapooja, salutations to Bhagavan Vishnu and Garudatdwaja, followed by  Ganesh Vandana.  In saree draped kacha fashion costume, holding her strong chauka, rock solid  balance in stances, deeply expressive netraabhinaya  and an involvement without  consciousness of self image, the dancer captured audience attention – concluding in khanda five syllabic rhyt
hm with the evocative Iha aa gachha call to Vighneswara. Sabda Nritya with sounds tam thai taka taki inda thai and Sabdaswarapatha appeal (music and rhythm inputs by Ramahari Das and  Dhaneswar Swain) with Shiva’s ecstatic tandav dance counterpointed by  Parvati’s lasya formed the centrepiece, Monami’s movements catching the two dance tones beautifully.  The dancer’s abhinaya , springing from an inner tranquillity, is not type caste. Kede chhanda Janilo sahi the Oriya lyric, perceived as narrated by an elderly person concerns Krishna’s Bala Lila in Bakasur Vadh, Pootana Vadh and Kaliadaman. Here one experienced a quality of karuna different from the amazed exuberance of one Gopi exclaiming to another (as usually interpreted).

Quite different from uncut diamond quality of Monami, was Bharatanatyam dancer Shweta Prachande, fast coming up in South India. With her supremely polished immaculate technique honed under two teachers Sucheta Chapekar and now Priyadarshini Govind, are scholarly attainments.  Shweta began with the Kartikeya Kavutvam in Shanmukhapriya before going on to the Swati Tirunal varnam in Karnataka Kapi ‘Suma sayaka’. The dancer’s serene demeanour opening out in expressive mukhabhinaya, the performance painted the age old portrait of the ever waiting nayika tormented by Manmatha’s arrows of love, pining in separation from Lord Padmanabha.

 She was helped by the musical team with Biju Venugopal’s melodious singing and Nandini providing violin support. The excellently paced nritta, particularly in the charanam speed, had Jayashree Ramanathan’s nattuvangam clarity with mridangam support by Shivaprasad. Very much in the Priyadarshini Govind vein was the Kshetrayya Padam Choodare  in raga Shahana, wherein gossipy women exchange their outrage at the nayika, who despite all her upper class marriage connections and comforts, is shamelessly  on her way for a tryst with Krishna.

A disciple of Pasumarthi Rattiah Sharma, Sreelakshmy Govardhan’s Kuchipudi also carried unusually soft abhinaya  without a strident boldness. The Ramayana Sabdam in Mohanam with a narrative of the main points of the epic from the Putra Yagyam to Pattabhishekham was followed by the more ambitious Krishna Stuti set by the dancer herself with a Navarasa Sloka and Tarangam. The dancer had an excellently evocative singer in Venkateshwaran whose ragamalika greatly aided the emotive impact of the Navarasa. The moments from the Krishna lore for highlighting each mood were also different. Draupadi’s state and appeal evoking Krishna’s compassion or Karunyam, the Geetopadesham philosophy to Arjuna extolling Veera rasa, and arbhuta or wonderment of Krishna holding Mt Govardhan aloft saving it from Indra’s deluge, and Gandhari’s red hot anger (raudram) leading to the curse on Krishna and mother Yashoda’s disgust (beebhatsam) on seeing Krishna covered with all the gore of an encounter saying he needed a bath, were some of
the cases in point. Sreelakshmi’s interpretative skills have an understated appeal – rare in this dance form. And in the tarangam part the footwork balanced on the rim of a brass plate, kept to the prescribed rhythm but without its heightened quality of dramatic virtuosity. Equally supportive her other musicians comprised nattuvangam by Subbalakshmi Ganesh, mridangam played by Manohar Balachandra and violin by G. Raghavendra Prakash.

Vidya Gauri, a Kathak disciple of Rajendra Gangani, has stage presence, good grasp over Kathak rhythm, and rare parhant at undreamed of speed retaining  clarity in bol enunciation. But does her dance have to be so dizzying in its speed, is what one would like to ask? In the blur, the defined quality and beauty of hand movements and body lines suffer- too fast to register on the audience mind. The Vigneshwara Stuti in Misra Behag, too began with too many Kavits robbing the item of quietude.

The teental nritta right from the paran amad with 27 chakkars, seemed to be in drut laya. In the various jaatis brought out in footwork, the khanda (5) the misrajati (musical on tabla by Yogesh Gangani) with the peacock imagery and the freezing in the chatusrajati Paran were noteworthy. Sankeerna (9) seemed missing. With the Chakradhar Farmaishi Paran and Yeti, it was all a mishmash of choices and where was the musicality in the Sangeeet ka tukra which was so fast that even listening to the bols made the head reel. The daner has what it takes to be a stage performer and she must concentrate on bringing more measured quality with grace into her dance. Dance is aesthetic and not a feat. The abhinaya based on the Ramcharit manas Ramayana, starting in Darbari Kanada and ending in Hamsanandi, was more narrative than interpretative which should be the focus in abhinaya. And the  Sanskrit ending Etad Ramayanam became Etadee.....Ramayanam in the music. These Sanskrit endings need to be studied.

The out-of-performance part began with a workshop on Theatre and Movement conducted by renowned Theatre  director and innovator, Professor Anuradha Kapur, presently visiting professor, Ambedkar University. Through a series of exercises to awaken different aptitudes and senses, it was interesting to see how when told to throw their weight forward while the partner prevented a fall with his/her hands taking the weight, the dancer participants tended to bend from the waist, throwing only the torso forward.

That complete trust needed in the partner, comes less easily to an Indian dancer used to moving in single blessedness, with bodies rarely touching even in group work, where stage space is shared. Similarly in the other exercise where a partner offering himself on all fours on the ground, for the other person to sit on, one remembers Ramli Ibrahim’s Odissi production based on verses from Amaru shatakam, using three similar crouching female figures on all fours, close to one another, as a bed/couch on which thehero lies down. The exercises were a way of creating body awareness and also shedding bodily inhibitions, enabling less self-conscious movement whether in dance or theatre.

The other excellently designed workshop with almost seventy participants, on the different kinds of bhramari (the Odissi pirouette), was conducted by Odissi exponent Sharmila Biswas. Largely drawing on her training under late Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, her accent was on the creative use of bhramaris for enhancing skills for kinetic moement and body transformation. Dance often involves unnatural body movement leading to backbone and knee problems in particular, apart from other difficulties.

For toning up the body with a set of simple exercises, increasing its ability to take on the movement toll dance demanded, Sharmila prescribed warming up and cooling down physical processes before going on to the teaching of Ardhabhramari, veshthtai, Ekapada, Kunchita, Garuda, Akash and Prithvi and Vipareeta bhramaris – not just as an Odissi movement but as a movement for all dancers who with some changes could fit these ways of circling into the respective idiom of their dance form. Innumerable variations for movement designing could be spun out. Sharmila’s knowhow gained over decades, being shared free with aspirants, was indeed generous. The very large space of Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya’s all-purpose hall was filled to capacity with participants.   

The second afternoon’s lecture by V.R.Devika, Founder and President of Aseema Trust (whose selfless work in bringing traditional performing arts into education, has not received deserved merit while titles galore go to several less deserving people) was most communicative. She started with narrating a ritual art in the Tondaiman area where the Kattai kootu group performs Kelaya Draupadi with rural folk avenging Draupadi’s dishonour through a mammoth drawing of Duryodhana made on the earth, with a pot of red water resting on the right thigh of the drawing (the thigh which taunted Draupadi to sit on it, which was broken by Bhima). The ritual ends with the symbolic act of the loose hair of the Draupadi icon in the village temple, and that of the actor as Draupadi being knotted into a bun.

Altogether, a Herculean endeavour, celebrating International Dance Day!