As part of the Telangana Formation day celebrations, Deepika Reddy and her students presented a Kuchipudi ballet — ‘Telangana Vaibhavam’ at Ravindra Bharathi last week. Deepika got a lengthy song written on the state and its rich culture and history by Vaddepalli Krishna who used extensively some verses and songs written by saints and poets of Telangana. Music was composed and rendered along with jatis by D.S.V. Sastry, scion of one of the Kuchipudi families.
Deepika choreographed all these dances and accompanied her students. The ensemble was comprised of K. Rajagopalachari on mridangam, R. Dinkar on violin, V. Phani Narayana on veena, V.B.S. Murali on flute, Vempati Lakshman Kumar on ghatam and D. Jayakumar Acharya providing special effects. Light effects were by Basavaraju. The musical part was pre-recorded to which dances were presented.
Deepika and some of her students opened the show with the song Vande Mataram, Telangana Mataram , paying tributes to the nation and the state. All the dancers were first seen offering salutations to Mother Telangana and then moved on to pay respects to great rivers like Krishna and Godavari. This being narrative of the events and milestones in history, the dances by Deepika and her students went more as abhinaya, especially in recalling Sammakka and Sarakka who fought against the system and how that a jatara is being held at Medaram. The pallavi of each of the lyrics gave out what the subject is. This being a dance narrating umpteen incidents, it ran like a reel of events to accompanying song. For example Kamaneeyam, Ramaneeyam Telangana Prantaalanni , an intro to present nature’s beauty and how tourists get attracted to have a look at them, like the Jaluvaru Konda Cherialu and so on. There was slokam on Lord Siva that gave space for the artistes to present dance and a verse from ‘Dasarathi Satakam’ too.
When it came to the ancient poets like Bhaktaramadasu and Bhakta Pothana, the script used one such composition of Ramadasu – Takkuvemi Manaku Ramudu Okkadunduvaraku that gave opportunity to present ‘Dasavataras’ as listed in the composition. Deepika and her dancers presented it well. Similarly another dramatic piece was ‘Gajendra Moksham’ sequence penned by Bhakta Pothana in his salacious work Maha Bhagavatham. The ballet also dealt with Basara where Goddess Saraswathi is the presiding deity, reflected through a popular slokam ‘Yakundendu’. The song Prabhu Prananatham is located to describe ‘Kaleswaram’ temple, where some Karanas figured. Lord Narasimha of Yadagiri and a reference to thousand pillar temple in Orugallu was also made. Deepika as Queen Rudrama Devi gave a glimpse of that role.
Tourist places like ‘Falaknuma palace’, Golkonda Fort and Charminar were also touched.
The dance explained why and how Hyderabad was originally named ‘Bhagyanagar’ adapting the name of dancer Bhagmati, who fell in love with Quli Kutub Shah.
This part was presented in Kathak style. There were many more such episodes in song and dance form that gave a panoramic view of Telangana. In the end Deepika appeared as a well decorated ‘Telangana Thalli’ saluted by subjects.
The supporting artistes were Sravya, Rishika, Mihira, Tejaswi, Gayatri, Kavya and Sloka.
