Meera Sreenarayanan depicts well unusual ideas

The dancer alternated between bhakti and shringara with perfect timing

Bharatanatyam dancer Meera Sreenarayanan is also a scholar, and her dance is characterised by quiet diligence as well as grace, confidence and restraint. These qualities come through in both her movements and her abhinaya.

Her interpretation of the padavarnam (‘Innam en manam’, Charukesi, adi, Lalgudi G. Jayaraman) was intriguing as she set it in context — the reaction of two gopis when they see Uddhava instead of Krishna on the chariot coming to Brindavan. In this composition, Meera depicted the two gopis as one consumed by love and the other overwhelmed by devotion. For each line, she enacted both the bhakti and shringara rasas. One gopi had the mridangam accompany her, and the other had the kanjira as accompaniment. It was a good idea, executed well.

Switching roles

The composition opened with the sound of hooves – indicating Krishna’s arrival – and the gopis are excited as they expect to see him soon. In the anupallavi, ‘Munnam payindradho’, the dancer turned around mid-phrase to portray the devotee who pleads with Krishna to bless him like he blessed King Mahabali in his vamana avatar. Then, as one of Krishna’s friends, the dancer reminds Krishna of his promise to join them when they go to steal butter.

Meera’s visualisation was detailed and mature. Her nritta had perfect timing, but one was not impressed with her range of steps. The jathis were accompanied by the flute. Within this too, she tried to innovate — ‘alapadma’ in the trikala jathi, dominated by khanda jathi and ‘mrigashirsha’ in the charana jathi, that turned into Krishna’s flute in the arudi.

At the end of the brisk charanam section, Krishna suddenly catches the gopi’s hand, the one in love, and she blushes in joy. This segment was done with perfect timing. The music reached a crescendo, but the very next moment Meera turned back into the devotee. At the end, Krishna holds them both close, perhaps to denote that he loves both equally.

This was followed by the ‘Kamakshi’ swajathi (Bhairavi, misra chapu). Visualised by Indira Kadambi and sung by T.V. Ramprasadh, who had rendered the invocation and Saraswathi Jatiswaram (rupaka, Ellappa Pillai), the music remained central to Meera’s soft-footed nritta for the swaras. Her poses, many of which were unusual and inspired from temple sculptures, were very good. She concluded her performance with Jayadeva’s Ashtapadi ‘Chandana charchitha’ (ragamalika, adi, music composition: Bijeesh). Instead of the sakhi, a bird carries information about Krishna to Radha. This deviation and the rest of the abhinaya was good.

There was one precious relic in the jatiswaram (rupaka) as visualised by Adyar Lakshman. His rhythmic prowess was visible in simple things such as the footwork while going back, which was most enjoyable.

The music team included Bijeesh Krishna (vocal and flute), Kalamandalam Charudutt (mridangam and nattuvangam), Suresh Namboothiri and Bhavyalakshmi Saji (violin), and Sunil Kumar (kanjira). While the music was excellent, the mridangam fillers were poetic.

Meera, who is presently being mentored by senior dancer Indira Kadambi, had her initial training under Prakash, R.L.V. Anand and Nirmala Nagaraj of Kalakshetra.

The Chennai-based writer reviews classical dance.