From the moment the stage turned dark blue and Embar S. Kannan’s violin played raga Amritavarshini, rain was in the air. And rain it did, over the next hour and a half at the Tagore Centenary Hall in Kozhikode on a warm April night. It was the premiere of ‘Amrithavarshini –A Rain Song’, Kozhikode-based Nrityalaya’s latest production.
Choreographed and presented by Bharatnatyam dancers N. Srikanth and Aswathy V. Nair, the production was a mélange of poetry, music and dance. There was a bit of Kathak and folk (Dandiya Raas) in the recital and that added to the flavour of the show.
The show beautifully captured the creative and destructive abilities of rain by blending verses in Tamil, Malayalam, Sanskrit, Hindi and English from works by Kalidasa, Surdas, Subramanya Bharathi and Cherussery. There were many highlights like a Kathak bandish that was performed gracefully by Aswathy and Srikanth. They performed verses from Kalidasa’s immortal ‘Meghasandesam’.
Srikanth and his promising disciple Nikhil Raveendran portrayed the strength of the rain as they performed vigorously to Subramanya Bharati’s ‘Mazhai’. It was Tandava at its best and it stood out in delightful contrast to the lasya of Bhagya Jayesh, Divya Chandran, UmaBhattathiripad, Rithika Mahadevan, Vineetha Madhavan and K.P. Midhula. The different segments of the recital was smoothly fused together. Music composed by Rajkumar Bharathy added to the charm of the show.
