Kuchipudi dancer and Guru Jayanthi Narayana presented the ballet Chandrika Parinayam at Ravindra Bharati, last week, under the banner of her institution Shinjaaravali Natyalaya.
Jayanthi chose a 16th century story written by Surabhi Madhavarayalu, zamindar of Jataprolu belonging to Kolhapur Samsthanam, now in Mahaboobnagar district. It opens showing sage Sounika narrating to his disciple Suta the story of a noble king named Suchandra of Surya Vamsam, who looked after the welfare of his people assiduously.
Lord Indra sends a celestial Apsara Chitrarekha to disturb sage Vasantha’s penance. Chitrarekha seeks the services of Manmadha (cupid) to disturb the penance of the sage. As they fail together, Chitrarekha holds the hand of the sage and in turn the sage curses Chitrarekha she would get a bad husband in her next birth. Shocked at the curse, Chitrarekha begs the sage to withdraw the curse. Taking pity on her the sage not only withdraws but says Chitrarekha would take birth in Bhooloka and become princess with the name Chandrika and would sure marry a nice person this time.
Now it was the turn of King Suchandra to enter the stage with self introductory Pravesa Daruvu. He goes for hunting a lion which was said to have come to kill a sage named Sandilya. He shoots an arrow but the lion personifies before him in the form of a Kinnera (demigod) named Kumuda. In return Kumuda introduces princess Chandrika of the land to Suchandra. They fall in love. The play ends with their marriage.
Jayanthi as Chandrika was the key figure in the ballet with fine performance. Ajay played King Suchandra and had his own share in the dancing part of the drama. Tulasi indeed was impressive as Chitrarekha.
Bharati as sage Vasantha, Aswani as Kumuda were in main roles. Pratyusha, Manvi, Aiswarya, Satwika, Vaishnavi, Darshini and Trishitha were in minor roles. Sweta Prasad scored music and rendered the compositions brilliantly. Lyrics were written by Trovagunta Ramakrishna.
Ballet on Krishnaveni
In 1981, writer Polavarapu Koteswara Rao penned some lyrics on river ‘Krishnaveni’ for Radio and they were broadcast over AIR two decades back. Noted writer Yarlagadda Lakshmi Prasad prompted US-based dancer Sujatha to convert the songs into a dance ballet. Accordingly, she then got them tuned by noted music composer Balasai of Chennai. She choreographed it with the help of her team member Kanchiraju Vijaya Sekhar and brought it to Hyderabad and presented it at Ravindra Bharati, apart from performing at Krishna Pushkaralu.
The presentation part of the ballet was more like giving topography of the river supported by a map of Krishna river’s flow and the pilgrim centres. The script spoke of the river’s origin Mahabaleswar then passing through various pilgrim centres, before finally merging with the sea at ‘Hamsala Deevi’ in Krishna district. All these experiences were presented though dance employing a number of dancers with Sujatha taking the lead. The ballet seemed more like a documentary but with apt dances that deserve appreciation. There was a visual projection in the backdrop on the screen behind the stage. Besides the lead dancer Sujatha, other participating dancers were Vijay Shekar, Shailaja, Manasa, Surendranath, Manjoosha, Lalitha, Sindhura, Radhakrishna and Srinivas.
