Like birds of a feather in the old adage, Shreya and Shilpa flock together, not to mention dancing and gathering laurels together. Last Sunday, however, they got their friends and well wishers flocking too, to Triveni Kala Sangam auditorium where the two sisters made their formal debut as Bharatanatyam artistes. Disciples of Guru Jayashankar Menon, Shreya and Shilpa performed the full suite of dance compositions that make up a traditional Bharatanatyam repertoire, along with some special ones like “Navarasa” which requires lots of facial expression and depicts the nine basic emotions — love, humour, anger, sorrow, disgust, fear, valour, wonder and tranquillity.
The Bharatanatyam repertoire, known as margam or path, gives dancers plenty of chance to show their technical prowess, with compositions like jatiswaram and tillana, which don't have lyrics but only music, to which ornamental dance steps are composed. While these drew applause from the audience, the other piece that was impressive was the varnam. The varnam forms the centre point of the show, and as the longest single item, it draws from a dancer reserves of both strength and imagination, with an equal measure of storytelling and rhythmic steps.
While Shreya is currently pursuing her B. Tech from Lingaya's University, Shilpa is a class IX student of N.K. Bagrodia Public School, Dwarka. Incidentally, the chief guest at the event was Dr. Rajee N. Kumar, Principal of N.K. Bagrodia Public School. Kumar praised the girls' guru for the excellent training imparted by him. The young artistes received a certificate and vilakku (oil lamp) from Nritya, Vikaspuri, the classical dance institute founded by their guru.
While Menon founded Nritya in 1985, he was not always a teacher of dance. A Scientific Officer in the Ministry of Defence in New Delhi, his obsession for dance led him to quit the job and plunge into the art full-time. Born in a small town in Kerala, he came to Bharatanatyam after a fairly long stint in Kathakali under Guru Kalamandalam Karunakaran. After learning the fundamentals of Bharatanatyam from Guru Paramashivam of Tanjore he underwent systematic training in Bharatanatyam under late Guru Govindarajan.
