The Ambujam Krishna Memorial Concert had a different tenor this year, that of dance theatre. ‘Forever Krishna: Endrum Kannan,’ presented by the JustUs Repertory was conceptualised and scripted by senior journalist-musician- dramatist Gowri Ramnarayan and staged together with musician Sikkil Gurucharan and choreographer-Bharatanatyam dancer Sheejith Krishna and the Sahrdaya group. The programme was dedicated to Ambujam Krishna and her son-in-law E.K. Parthasarathy.
Ambujam Krishna was a 20 century poet-lyricist-bhakta, who composed close to 750 songs, of which about 300 are available. Unplanned, the songs were spontaneous outpourings of devotion and surrender to the many Hindu deities including Krishna, for whom she had special affection, and Rama, whom she yearned to see.
Interestingly, she composed in Tamil, Hindi, Telugu, Manipravalam and Kannada, without knowing some of them, and often even forgot to add her mudra ‘Ambujam’ to the lyrics.
Fashioning a narrative around the devotional literature, Gowri took the rasikas on a journey to Gokul and Brindavana, through divine music, sprightly dance, suggestive stage design (Gowri) and mood lighting (Venkatesh Krishnan).
Opening as a play within a play, the dancers declare, ‘I am going to create a whole new world of Krishna... To Ambujam Krishna, Brindavana is the ideal place and Krishna is the ultimate refuge.’ True to this promise, for almost 90 minutes, we saw Krishna as a child, prankster and later as a compassionate godhead.
Beautifully rendered Kapi by Muthukumar (flute) and Easwar Ramakrishnan (violin) in the popular ragamalika kriti, ‘Kanna vaa’ announced the birth of Krishna. Celebrated by the gopis, tender moments of Krishna’s babyhood were captured as fleeting images from a camera, with Sheejith’s out-of-the-box creativity- baby Krishna killing Shakatasura and Poothana were shown with suggestive movements, much like the choreographer drawing the blanks and you filling it up with your knowledge of Hindu mythology; again the young lad stealing butter, being tied to the mortar and bringing Kubera’s sons back to life were presented in a jathi (Adi). The beauty is that he can make inartistic moves, such as dancers showing bhava uniformly, look artistic.
Ramesh Babu (mridangam) was Sheejith's able ally in his sarva laghu adventures. ‘Kanna vaa..’ was a high point on many fronts; Gurucharan’s voice had warmed up by the second piece and there was no stopping the flow of melody after that. He might have been an accompanist, an illustrious one at that, but he was able to reach within himself and deliver with soul-stirring intensity.
Creativity was at its peak in the viruttam-like segment; Gowri had culled verses from different compositions, tuned by Gurucharan, and explored the experience of Krishna though the five senses. Five dancers were seated in the dark, and as each explored one sense, such as ‘touch’ in ‘Kamalamukam ninaithal’ from the kriti, ‘Varuvaano, vaarano’ (the original Sama was changed to Sindhu Bhairavi), the spotlight was on her. Intense poetry, glorious melody and subtle emoting punctured the silence and darkness with raw intensity.
Alas, there is always a fall-out; anything that comes after such beauty will pale in comparison. That was the fate of ‘Nindraadinaane’ (Todi, Rupaka) and ‘Arul vadivai nindraan’ (Latangi, Adi) in which the music retained its silence but the clever choreography of the Kalinga Narthana and the Govardhana Giri episodes seemed superficial. ‘Aadinaye Kanna’ (Mohana Kalyani, Adi) made for a lively finale. One would have wished for a closure of the play within the play.
While Gowri’s painstaking research and the brilliant soundscape stole the show, Krishna occupied centrestage throughout, just as Ambujam Krishna would have wished. The dancers were: Sheejith, Anjana Anand, Prithvija Balagopalan, Rajamally, Varsha, Viraja, Sunitta, Pavani and Girish Madhu.
