Group production in myriad flavours

Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra’s week-long festival at the Kamani to commemorate Dr Charat Ram’s Birth Centenary featured  a vast canvas of group productions comprising  old and new works  of the Kendra and other invited groups — in free style, traditional and contemporary dance.

The curtain went up with the Kendra’s nritya natika, Meera. The distinguishing aspects of the production lay in the dance narrative highlighting not just the poetry of Meera’s songs, given their very autobiographical tone, but the fact that this  Krishna devotee  born to the closeted, strait-jacketed, patriarchical Rajasthani aristocracy, thought nothing of throwing off the yoke and trappings of feudal comfort, to follow her heart and mind which had place only for Krishna.

The dichotomy and irony of a life born with a silver spoon yearning for sainthood, so starkly emphasised in Meera’s  life, did not need the dramatic device of projecting two Meeras in the starting scenes, which aside from being an overstatement, was confusing.   Meera’s life represented woman’s  fight for liberty and the right to make her own choices.

What was laudable was the faithful capture of the flavours and ambience of Rajasthani culture — through the simple and aesthetic stage settings and the designing of the dance narrative, which without distracting from the story line included the typical dances of this region like Kalbelia, Ghoomar, Kachhi Ghodi, Teratali etc. Produced some time ago, this venture was blessed with excellent foundational research by late Komal Kothari who provided script inputs with Keshav Kothari   designing the simple but very effective sets. And adding tremendously emotive melody power to the production is the music composed by Shubha Mudgal who also renders some of the songs meant for the female characters along with Radhika Chopra (the songs for male characters are sung by Manish Khullar and Hameed Khan). The lead direction and choreography by Shobha Deepak Singh assisted by Raj Kumar Sharma, had the advantage of a captivating dancer in Molina Singh for the role of Meera. Without clutter, and simple in the sequential narration, right from the start, the desire to throw off all mortal bonds is emphasized like a refrain in the sadhu and his team of holy men singing and moving “Jagatme koi nahi tera”.    The unease of the Mother at Meera’s insistence that Krishna visits her in her dreams: “Maji Mane Sopaname Barani Gopal”, Meera’s  announcement to her just wed husband that Hari is her beloved “Ranaji Giridhar Preetam pyaro”,  and Meera’s defiance in her final act of severing all family bonds: “Laaj gayi ghungatki, ab na rahoongi tori hatki” were all very tellingly enacted, the production never resorting to exaggeration,  even in scenes of Meera being forced to drink poison and being left at the mercy of poisonous serpents — all touched upon fleetingly. The other characters too were very supportive.

Madhu Gopinath and Vakkom Sajeev of Samudra Performing Arts, based in Kerala, and specialising in Contemporary Dance productions, in their Samudra-natanam - Jalam focussed on one of the cardinal issues confronting mankind- namely the dwindling sources of water, a vital necessity for life on earth. The dancers of this group meticulously trained in Yoga, South Indian classical forms, and the martial art techniques of Kerala like Kalaripayattu, have created a strong body language of powerful plie, and dance lines with full stretches.  Most praiseworthy were the taut bodied, impeccably trained, balanced male and female dancers, moving with clarity of lines. Contemporary dance devices with two bodies balancing each other, light footed lifts, and jumps — and floor tumbles getting into tangled situations and emerging out of them smoothly, are all part of the choreography. And one liked the rhythm, mostly in misram and at times in tisram all neatly brought out though movement, through footwork, through clapping. The music in Sopanam style of rendition has a haunting quality, though most of the background sound is based on a variety of percussion sounds in various tones — from Kerala — Chendra, Edekka, Timila, the Chengala, talam and even the copper drum of Koodiyattam — the Mizhavu. The skeletal story line starts with a Sanskrit sloka on the gracious Varuna with his bounty of water, drenching the sandy coloured dry Earth, filling Prithvi with the beauty of life in various forms and greenery, and goes on to how the Oceans are sullied by the acts of treacherous, uncaring persons leading to death and pestilence. While water is life, the dance also shows too much of it causing destruction. The  evil character pitting its might against the beneficial forces, the veil- covered ghost like faces and bodies in a death dance (thanks to the polluted waters), and scenes where the swirls of yards of cloth held in the hand by the dancers creates patterns in the air adding to the geometry of the dance, was interesting. Disciplined group work is a feature of Samudra.

“Where the Streets are fragrant with Sandal paste” in Bharatanatyam conceived by Justin McCarthy heading the Kendra Bharatanatyam faculty  was one of the festival high points in creative imagination and aesthetics of presentation, built around the history of Bharatanatyam.  Credit to Justin McCarthy for creating a production visualising the dance  in the pre-democratic avatars, when practised in its natural, non-proscenium  setting . Sudha Raghuraman’s soulful singing, given such a major role in creating the ambience goes to the credit of a musician/dancer like Justin who realises that dance is visual poetry inspired by the music. The Kumara Sambhavam couplet of  Kalidasa “Vak arthaaviva sampruktau....” that the word and its meaning are as inseparable as Parvati from Parameswara,  ( an indirect pointer to the fact that the dance  is nothing sans its historical context)  was briefly shown through  elementary abhinaya, Justin himself making a very brief appearance. The dancer through history paid court to a variety of patrons. In the just rising Sun, early morning, with the raga along with it, the opening scene “How May I praise Thee?” had Umar Daraz’ ingeniously   fashioned “pallaakku” (palanquin) balanced on bamboo poles carried  in a procession parading the deity of the temple, the key patron of the dance  with people and dancers paying homage. The tiger, the mythical bird, Nandi guarding the palanquin were all shown through stances and hand gestures. The music in the background render’s Shankaracharya’s  Ardhanariswar hymn in Sanskrit “Champeya Gauraanga”. The deity is replaced by a picture of the Raja, the main patron of the dancing women as the scene smoothly projects the Pallavi section of a varnam (quintessential high point of a devadasi’s performance addressing patron in mixed sensuous/spiritual tones)  ) in Nattai “Sarasijanabha” rendered in two speeds of what is a traditional, rhythmically very challenging composition . The ambience again changes and along with it the music in Tamil based on verses from the Silappadikaram  “Tingalai Porrudum” set to Kambhoji,  worshipping the early rising Sun (very suggestive)  the picture in the Pallakki i now one of  British royalty  with accommodating dancers in British rule paying obeisance to the reigning authority: “O! Goddess Heavenly bright”, the English verses from Edmund Spencer’s “The Faerie Queen” has dancers paying salutations with the music in Kalyani with segments recited set to a ‘nottu swaram’ style of music which began during Muttuswamy Dikshitar’s time.

The second scene of the Dance, belonging to the ‘Sadir’ days (as the dance was called before being named Bharatanatyam) visualised an evening in the House of the Dancing Girls known for their expressional prowess. The lyrics selected were typical of the times, when great composer Dharmapuri Subbarayar, created Javalis for his love and muse Veenai Dhannammal. (Very typical were the music soirees held in the home of well-heeled gentry, when Veenai Dhanammal, the famous grandmother of Balasaraswati, played her soul stirring music on the veena). Smarasundaranguni sari evvare in Paras ragam depicts the typical swadheenapatika, very confident in the assured love of her man who will not even look another woman, “Sakhi Prana” in Senjurutti ragam sees the nayika bemoaning the beloved’s switching his affections to another woman, and finally comes the jilted khandita nayika, berating the nayak who is the Lord of Tirupathi himself, for falling for the wiles of the other woman. The scene was designed to evoke an informal and easy ambience with dancing girls interacting with a man in their midst, and lyrics being interpreted by individual dancers with others in the group looking on appreciating.  And dancers Priya Srinivasan with her Kalakshetra background, along with  Maitrika Rathore, Veena Kumar, Abhinaya Penneswaran and Karuna Singla — all well trained by Justin,  rendered  involved, yet subtle interpretation — the inspiring  emotive backdrop provided by Sudha’s singing.

 The concluding segment “On the banks of the Yamuna” through the contrast between what was and what is, concluded on a contemporary note. Quick vestiges of River Jamuna of old, inspiring the Ashtapadi lines from Jayadeva’s Gitagovindam “Dheera sameere Yamuna teere vasati vane vanamali”, the Padam “Maduranagarilo” in Anandabhairavi on the land of milk and honey and frolicking on the banks and Dikshitar’s “Nandagopala” in Yamuna Kalyani, changed to the grim poetry of lines from Milton’s Paradise Lost — a metaphor for what man has done to the Yamuna. Justin, weighed down, dragging long strips of plastic water bottles strung together, told the story. And the inventive music with words recited in a staccato rap fashion was most evocative.

“Movement and Stills” Kumudini Lakhia’s  choreography presented by dancers of her institution Kadamb, along with male dancers from Delhi, starting with Aakar went on a Maharaja Bindadin Ashtapadi paying obeisance to the Gods, composed in taal Dhamar and set to music in Hindol by Madhup Mudgal. The strong feel for theatre that is the Kumudini style was obvious — with the full bodily extensions, not a whit compromised even at tremendous speed, with stage formations and patterns being constantly changed while interacting with space, with Dhamar taal in all its manly vigour. One liked the male dancers (largely from Delhi) in a separate group performing to the taal with a quiet dignity. Kumudini’s main disciple Sanjukta Sinha, a Diva in every sense of the term, and more than a match for a male dancer, could, one feels, inject more of the soft touches into her dance, which almost intimidates in its prodigious mastery.

The Tarana set to Madhup Mudgal’s music in Kedar with no electronic instrument accompanying, lattice worked windows etched on the back curtain through lighting, saw dancers clad in white gliding like swans on the stage, dancing to technical names recited as padhant. Animated “Padhant” of original bols of Kathak mnemonics became a language of interaction by itself sans movement, evoking different emotive energies.  Kumudini Lakhia’s broad minded approach encouraging her dancers to challenge the energy of well trained bodies in a contemporary piece of work, choreographed by Santosh Nair with Bernard Schimplesberger’s music, while handsomely executed, made one wonder “Whither Kathak?”

The writer is an eminent dance critic