The youth festivals in Bharatanatyam dances being held annually by Kalasagaram for a long time now became almost a spring board for many a dancer to emerge as ‘much acclaimed’ artistes of the present day. General Secretary of Kalasagaram V. Rajgopal takes prides in admitting it as much. This year’s youth festival of dance, held last week at Keyes High School, Secunderabad, was opened with a rare feature of interpreting Thyagaraja Pancharatna Kirtanas in Bharatanatyam, a job undertaken by the experienced Bharatanatyam exponent Rajeswari Sainath.
Though a few dancers had earlier singled out numbers from Pancharatna kriti list giving space in Bharatanatyam repertoire, this was the first time all the five kirtanas were presented in one dance performance. There were occasions of choosing one or the other composition like Jagadananda Karaka in Nata or Kanakana Ruchira in Varali and staging them in dances. “The more you make it musical, the more attractive the number would turn into,” says Rajeswari. Explaining the reason why these kirtanas are rarely found in dance recitals, Rajeswari says these can never be presented as an abstract form for the reason that sahitya and tala go like counters in some numbers. Kanakanaruchira is most difficult to set in dance for it is in Chowka kalam. Though these may be the reasons why there was lesser demand for Pancharatna kirtanas to be taken into dance, Rajeswari choreographed the first four of the Pancharatnas and her daughter Vyshnavie completed the job by choreographing the final one Endaro Mahanubhavulu in Sriragam.
May be the curiosity to see how the Pancharatna Kirtanas look in dance forms brought the audience in huge number. It was a packed auditorium. The dances were presented by the senior disciples of Rajeswari Sainath.
Jagadanandakaraka in Nata went to the share of Koka Hiranmayi. The gist of it was Thygaraja’s prayer to Srirama for his successful mission of penning the kirtanas. In the second kirtana Dudukugala in Gowla, Thyagaraja attributes all bad qualities to himself and seeks mercy from the God to find ways to remove these bad traits. This was presented by Sreenidhi Saitej. The third Sadhinchene is more an introspection of Thyagaraja why Srirama was ignoring him. This went to the share of Taruni Sanjay. The fourth one Kana kana ruchira in Varali describes the thrill of Thyagaraja when he imagined God’s presence before him. This was presented by sisters Sanjana Umesh and Sahana Umesh. Rajeswari rightly trained the artistes to present abhinaya aptly. Endaro Mahanubhavulu , the fifth and last Pancharatna kirtana was presented by all the five dancers to the excellent choreography of Vyshnavie Sainath.
This gripping piece was the highlight of the evening that ended with statuesque posturing of Rama, Sita, Lakashman and Anjaneya in one frame and showing Thyagaraja singing in their praise.
While all the Pancharatnas had the support of matching rhythm patterns, with sahitya porruttams, the arudis were composed for sahityas thus making the five kritis sound like musical rhythm.
The orchestral support to Rajeswari’s nattuvangam was by Gomathy Nayagam’s vocal, Nagai Naayanan on mridangam (both from Chennai); Siva Krishna Swaroop on violin Murali on flute, Srikanth on kanjira.
Lighting effects were by Basavaraju.
