One of the programmes at the Yagnaraman July Fest 2015 presented by Sri Krishna Gana Sabha and Utsav Music was a themed Kuchipudi- Chhau performance titled, ‘Prakriti and Purusha- Spirit of Man and Woman’, presented by Kuchipudi dancer Bhavana Reddy along with guest artist Rakesh Sai Babu (Chhau).
Bhavana is one of the most charming generation next performers of the Kuchipudi solo tradition, besides being a musician of international repute. As a dancer, she is lively, confident and agile; with perfectly-timed freizes she creates a sensuousness that goes well with the lasya-tandava style that her parents and gurus, veteran artists Raja, Radha and Kaushalya Reddy, practise.
Bhavana has an enviable guru parampara - Gurus Raja and Radha Reddy were trained by Vedantam Prahlada Sarma, brother-teacher of the famous stree-vesham artist Vedantam Satyanarayana Sarma and disciple of the renowned Vedantam Lakshminarayana Sastry, who introduced the concept of solo dance in the Kuchipudi style and taught it to women. Prahlada Sarma is believed to have streamlined Kuchipudi to follow the Natya Shastra, just as the illustrious Vempati Chinna Satyam did later. Bhavana’s gurus have, in turn, enhanced Kuchipudi’s lasya-tandava aspects, introducing duet choreographies as their signature style.
The richly attired dancer commenced with a sloka on Prakriti, a dependant reality, dependant on the supreme godhead Purusha. She drew parallels with a dancer who dances before an audience and withdraws after the performance, to indicate the manifest and unmanifest states. Bhavana represented Prakriti or creation in a feminine form.
There is a sudden change of heart for the troubled woman in creation and she breaks into a beautiful Pt. Ravi Shankar Tarana (Natabhairav, Ek taal). Bhavana was like a sculpture come to life with striking poses and high-speed nritta. It is only at the end, when the mood turned solemn that one connected the concept of Prakriti withdrawing back into the unmanifest state.
It was like this all through. The show was exciting, if a bit more glamorous than substantial, but disappointingly unclear with the mix up of ideologies and incomplete explanations.
Bhavana continued with an Ashtapadi (‘Kuru Yadu Nandana,’ ragamalika, misra chapu) bringing in the concept of madhura bhakti as the jivatma yearns for the paramatma or Prakriti for Purusha.
After their happy re-union, Radha makes bold to ask Krishna to decorate her body and set right her dishevelment. Radha’s bold and seductive entry was a departure from the typical soft-spoken heroine that one expected.
Bhavana’s emotions were fluid and many times one saw the glimmer of deeper engagement, but like a wispy rainbow it was gone in a moment and the physicality took over.
The male principle or the Supreme Purusha, was presented in Mayurbhanj Chhau by Rakesh Sai Babu, a hereditary performer of the martial art form of Orissa, son and disciple of Guru Janmejoy Sai Babu. Filled with big expansive movements displaying a stunning level of body conditioning, the Tandava included Siva leelas such as the Neelakanta episode, the Rudra Tandav and the Gajasura Samhara.
The finale was the coming together of Prakriti and Purusha- this was visualised as a love duet, an excerpt from the Usha Parinayam Yakshagana, in which Usha dreams of the handsome Anirudha and their imagined tryst.
Supported with riveting melody by T. Sashidharan (flute), Kandadevi S. Vijayaraghavan (violin), Randhini (vocal), attentive percussion from Sasidhar Acharya (dhol) and B.Bhaskar Rao (mridangam), with guidance from Kaushalya Reddy (nattuvangam), the presentation was poetic.
The imagery of Usha’s dream projected outside simultaneously was deft as was the coming together of the two movement styles. As before, the physical spirit of man and woman outshone the metaphysical angle of Prakriti and Purusha. Choreography was by the gurus.
