A packed Ravindra Bharati witnessed dances by the students of young Bharatanatyam artiste Vyshnavie Sainath on the occasion of the third anniversary celebration of Vyshnavie’s institute Vyshnavie Natya Centre, last Saturday.
The concept of this dance event was to narrate the traditional approach in teaching the art, charting out a repertoire in traditional order before journeying to ‘varnam’ that enjoys an exquisite position. It was a kind of evolution and hence the show was rightly called ‘Nritya Vikasam’. It started with ‘Pushpanjali’, offering salutations to God, audience, accompanists and guru and then moved to ‘Ganesha Vandanam’. This is followed by ‘Jatiswaram’ that gives first taste of rhythm, jatis and swaras cobwebbed in technicalities. Then appears a kriti — here it’s Dikshitar’s Kanjadalatakshi Kamakshi in Kamalamanohari; that surveys the entire gamut of Abhinaya skills clubbed with jatis too and then, finally reaching to the quintessential varnam an epitome of Bharatanatyam that balances abhinaya with technical skills while carrying the mood of sahitya devotional to romantic. On this occasion the choice was Srikrishna Paramatma, a Telugu composition penned by Sitarama Sarma set in Simhendramadhyamam.
A packed Ravindra Bharati witnessed dances by the students of young Bharatanatyam artiste Vyshnavie Sainath on the occasion of the third anniversary celebration of Vyshnavie’s institute Vyshnavie Natya Centre, last Saturday.
The concept of this dance event was to narrate the traditional approach in teaching the art, charting out a repertoire in traditional order before journeying to ‘varnam’ that enjoys an exquisite position. It was a kind of evolution and hence the show was rightly called ‘Nritya Vikasam’. It started with ‘Pushpanjali’, offering salutations to God, audience, accompanists and guru and then moved to ‘Ganesha Vandanam’. This is followed by ‘Jatiswaram’ that gives first taste of rhythm, jatis and swaras cobwebbed in technicalities. Then appears a kriti — here it’s Dikshitar’s Kanjadalatakshi Kamakshi in Kamalamanohari; that surveys the entire gamut of Abhinaya skills clubbed with jatis too and then, finally reaching to the quintessential varnam an epitome of Bharatanatyam that balances abhinaya with technical skills while carrying the mood of sahitya devotional to romantic. On this occasion the choice was Srikrishna Paramatma, a Telugu composition penned by Sitarama Sarma set in Simhendramadhyamam.
This being the order of this ‘Nritya Vikasam’ the presentation looked consummate building right mood, for the audience to enjoy the numbers. This event being the institute’s anniversary, Vyshnavie rightly thought to give stage exposure to her students, grouping them in different age groups in the order of their capability to present each of the numbers in that order. The initial ‘Pushpanjali’ brought on to the stage little children, numbering about 15, all moving aptly timing with the rhythm. The second number was on Lord Vinayaka that was opened with a slokam that drove the rest of the composition on devotional plane. This was presented by fifteen another set of 15. It was a scene to watch — these little artistes presenting the number with cheerful countenances.
The Jatiswaram brought in more experienced children. This was set in Rasali and was followed by Muthuswamy Dikshitar’s ‘Kanjadalayatakshi’ in Kamalamanohari depicting virtues and beauty of Goddess Kanchi Kamakshi, comparing her eyes to the petals of a lotus. There were intermittent jatis, punctuating the charanas.
The Varnam Srikrishna Paramatma the epitome of the repertoire was imbedded with plenty of stories woven around Srikrishna from birth to moving to the land of ‘Kurukshetra’ where Krishna preaches to Arjuna, the duties of a human, in the form of Bhagvad Gita, majestically presented. The varnam also brought in the themes around Vasudeva, Yasoda, Krishna lifting Mandharagiri, ‘Kaleeya Mardanam’,‘Rasaleela’ with gopikas, ‘Kuchelopakhyanam’, ‘Vamanavatara’ ending with ‘Geetopadesam’, the highlight of this set of events. Jatis began pouring in right after the rendition of Pallavi line. These were presented by senior students, some taking different roles in various themes.
The final act was staging of an Abhang ‘Vitthale, Bhaktajana Vatsale’ bringing in veteran artistes — 70-year-old Mythili Seshadri, gynecologist Dr. Rajashree Duvvuri, dental surgeon Dr. Maduri Rajagopalan and Manju Lalitha — all students of young Vyshnavie.
Then came the much awaited Kalari performance. Vyshnavie introduced this stunning Kerala-based martial art form - ‘Kalaripayattu’, featuring well trained gurus Lt.Col. Ranjait Chako and Prithvi, along with a set of young girls trained by them to replicate what these experts were presenting.
The dances were presented to live orchestra with Vyshnavie conducting them with perfect and animated nattuvangam to Karra Srinivas’ mridangam support.
Vocal support by Sangeetha Kala was mellifluous and expressive. Muralidhar on violin, Venkatesh on flute, Srikanth on tabla and special effects, were others in the ensemble. Compeering the show Pawan Kumar made each number’s content lucid.
At a brief function held later A.R. Anuradha IPS, Addl. D.G.P., Intelligence of A.P. presented mementos to all the participating artistes, young and old.
