HYDERABAD: Chinmayi Nrityalaya presented a special show at Shilparamam’s open air stage recently, the highlight being the presentation of ‘Navarasas’.
The programme began with traditional invocation to Vinayaka presented by three students of Chinmayi Nrityalaya — Amrutha, Neha and Navya. This was sloka-ridden Ganesha Pancharatnam of Adi Shankara, difficult to interpret in functional abhinaya. Yet they made it soothing and divine presentation.
Chinmayi then performed Oothukadu Venkata Subbaiyer’s Swagatham Krishna . This brought out some themes related to Krishna. It was an impressive lyric and Chinmayi’s dance was as expressive as its content was. Moreover it served as prelude to the main ‘Navarasa’ theme she presented later.
The Navarasa presentation ran on Krishna, who is an avatar of Vishnu and Venkateswara being one of his forms. Keeping that in mind Chinmayi made Sringara kirtana of Annamayya Vachenu Alamelu Manga as her base for Navarasa presentation. It opened with depiction of ‘ Sringara Rasam ’ featuring Krishna and his consort Satyabhama.
This was followed by ‘Hasya rasam’ that was extracted from the sequence wherein Krishna teasing Gopikas.
The next piece was ‘Karuna’. This was shown by the artiste playing the role of Krishna changing fate of ugly looking ‘Ashtavakra’ with just touching her body to set it right.
For depiction of ‘Roudra Rasam’ Chinmayi chose a sequence from Mahabharata where Krishna and Arjuna move to Kurukshetra for war, but Arjuna hesitates to kill his relatives and Gurus but displays ‘Roudram’ only after Krishna reveals his Viswaroopam. ‘Veera Rasam’ is a bit akin to Rowdra for Veera generates from Roudra or vice versa. Krishna shows it in killing demon Chanoora that the dancer presented animatedly. ‘Bheebhatsa’ and ‘Bhayanaka’ moods too were aptly presented through interpretation of ‘Kamsa Vadha’. The presentation of these ‘Navarasas’ was done to background music, with the dancer going through different moods (avasthas) aptly. It was a highly animated presentation with the dancer showing her involvement in the character.
Chinmayi concluded her show with ‘Santi Vachanam’, ‘Santi’ is also one of the moods.
This show was present to pre-recorded music.
