This was one of the rare evenings where Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dances were performed together on the stage of Ravindra Bharati. The occasion was to mark legendary Kuchipudi guru Chinta Krishna Muthy’s 45th vardhanti, organised by All-India Kuchipudi Natya Kalamandali, under the supervision of its founder Secretary Pasumarthy Kesava Prasad. The event attracted a host of Kuchipudi artistes and gurus who specially came from their village Kuchipudi.
However, Bharatanatyam presented by Singapore-based Gayatri Sriram took centre stage for its quality and perfection. A student of Chennai’s Kalakshetra alumnus Minal Prabhu, Gayatri’s show was a display of total involvement and dynamism. Titled as ‘Mukti Margam’, the dance was choreographed by Minal Prabhu and Sasidharan gave vocal support, with Sriharsha on mridangam, Ganesh on violin and Murugan on vaidya.
The four numbers Gayatri presented were in Sanskrit, opening with salutations to Sun God – Surya Deva Namaste set in Kautvam format in ragamalika and talamalika, a breezy number that ran as ‘Stotram’ to Sun God. She then went for Pada Varnam in ragamalika. It was a theme on Krishna. Like its title ‘Srikrishna Katha Sangraham’ it narrated significant sequences in Krishna’s life written by G. Gurumurthy and music set by Balasubramanyam. This was a devotional number, converted into varnam format.
The themes that followed were ‘Draupadi Vastrapaharanam’, ‘Kuchelopakhyanam’ and ‘Bhagavad Gita’ posing a challenge for the artiste to change into successive charactersThe entire piece was abhinaya oriented.
Gayatri presented an Ashtapadi of Jayadeva Kuru Yadunandana in Tilang as a finale.
