It was a treat to watch the illustrious Bharati Shivaji after a hiatus. That she has put an indelible stamp of her own on Mohiniyattam once again came to the fore with her dance tribute to the re-emerging Kerala after the recent spate of natural disasters. Anything she touches turns into a thing of beauty. Right from her solos to duets to group, it was an enchanting evening.
Her opening statement – an invocation to lord Ganapati – was a unique piece drawn from Kerala folklore where Shiva and Shakti in sport transform into elephant couple and give birth to a baby elephant called Gajanan. The veteran guru depicted this story with aplomb – emulating the tusker with dignified, heavy, measured gait in contrast with the slow, more refined walk of its female and then the baby elephant (Ganesh) trotting around with a pot-belly.
Picture perfect
The language of the song was not needed for a non-Malayali audience to appreciate the sequence of events – Bharati Shivaji was picture perfect in narration through dance. Her agility with footwork and bends as she does her sancharis was amazing. The shrug of the upper body – a typical bestial movement – as she walks around the stage was superb. The Ganapati prayer gave way to Vani Bhagawati (goddess of arts and knowledge) invocation so seamlessly and she alternated her mime between the two deities finishing off the footwork pattern with a flourish.
Her Ashtapadi ‘Dheera sameere Yamuna teere...’ with her disciple was unique too as it was more about a sakhi (friend) of the sulking Radha persuading her to meet Krsna in a romantically, conducive climate. Her sanchari (visualisation while dancing) as she weaves a garland and dons it like Krsna (for the line Vastathi vane Vanamali) was something that caught the eye of even a casual viewer. Unlike other veterans who confine themselves to just abhinaya, the dancer pepped up the song with footwork patterns intermittently endowing it with the classical touch.
The last piece, a rather lengthy one, where she had to use a digital screen to depict Kerala as a state in bloom with its deep-rooted traditions and arts and contrast it with the present chaos was a group choreography where these details were worked out with meticulous care. Almost all the nava rasa (nine moods) were evident in this piece – the joy of the fauna in the lush green habitat, the romantic atmosphere of arts like Kathakali thriving at their best, the deep-rooted faith of God’s own land (a synonym for Kerala); the wrath of nature; the concurrent devastation (bhibatsa); the pathos in the aftermath of the havoc and finally the rejuvenation. Here she brought in the character of Mahabali who walks around the stage, umbrella in hand and assures all the victims of nature’s fury of a fresh lease of life. The song and dance wound its way through the positives to the negative and back to hope in one continuous thread.
Earlier, the group of disciples gave an aesthetic, perfect execution of Mukhachalam – (nritta) formatted in pure dance to showcase the nuances and technicalities of Mohiniyattam.
The show was at Kamala Devi Complex, India International Centre, New Delhi.
