The evening could not have been more magical at Kalakshetra. A soft evening breeze, lingering cloud of sambarani , Padma Pushkarani (lotus pond) and the scattered granite gazebos amidst the tall trees and lush foliage, made a poetic backdrop for the glorious exploratory style of music and the understated dance visualisation.
The hour-long ‘Vastrasmaranam — Weaving Memories’ was a precursor to the sari exhibition marking the revival of Rukmini Devi’s inspirational Kanjeevarams and her brand of ‘Kalakshetra saris.’ The dance production conceptualised by Bharatanatyam dancer-teacher and musician Justin McCarthy envisioned the sari in three ways. The first was from a child’s point of view, when the mother’s pallu becomes the security blanket. The sari took on a different role when a woman in love was yearning to be with her beau and the last was the image of the sari as draped on goddesses and in god images. Justin and his collaborator Bharatanatyam dancer-teacher Stella Subbiah, a Kalakshetra alumnus, presented ‘Vastrasmaranam’ along with stellar musicians: Sudha Raghuraman (vocal), G. Raghuraman (flute), Ananthanarayanan (veena), Vedakrishna Ram (mridangam) and Hari Padman (nattuvangam).
‘Vastrasmaranam’ was not a conventional presentation. The location was not a proscenium proper but an approximately 10x10 gazebo alongside the pond steps, the distance between the dancers and the audience too long to discern the nuances and the lighting too broad-based to showcase any more than the dancers’ movements.
The big picture
But that was the whole point, not to look at the minutiae, but at the big picture. The performance was a meditative, slow unravelling of mood and music, evoking poetic imagery and upholding the the highest sense of aesthetics. With the music largely manodharma-based and the dancers avoiding loud, forceful rhythm, a calm, chauka kaala flow was maintained. There were small nritta passages, but they did not intrude into the peace. It also helped that the dancers did not wear bells.
The artists opened with ‘Vagarthaviva,’ a prayer to Siva and Parvati from Kalidasa’s Raghuvamsa. The segment with regard to children mimicked an ‘adavu class’ with the dancers performing the beginners’ steps. While the lullaby (Neelambari) and the animal-oriented ‘Pachchaikkiliye vaa vaa’ (Behag) and ‘Thookanankuruvi’ (Punnagavarali) songs were neat descriptions, their connection to the sari did not come through.
The heroines in the Khamas padavarnam, ‘Samiyai azhaithu vaadi’ and in ‘Payyada’ (Nadanamakriya) both are in love but the shades of yearning are miles apart. While the former has a happy, confident heroine telling her friend to bring her man to her, there is desolation and bitterness in the latter. For the man who would not even bat his eyelids while gazing at her, for fear of twilight receding into darkness, it is all over now. Both were alternated, more cleverly as regards the music than the dance. The instrumental treatment for the varnam, was a surprise teaser.
The interesting part of the delineations was that the dancers even while dramatising the same song and moving in similar chauka kaala ways, did not have a practised uniformity. They also used levels to good effect — one seated, the other standing. The sari was a natural part of this segment with Stella using the pallu to show netra abhinaya, cry into or retreat behind and Justin seated on the sari while emoting.
The last segment was about saris and the deities, particularly Devi. The lines from Soundarya Lahiri described Her from head to toe, the description ending with Stella as the goddess being draped by a sari. The stillness of the moment and the familiar drape of the goddess was easily the most powerful image of the show.
“The first time I laid my eyes on a sari was at Kalakshetra, in 1979. Smt. Rukmini Devi's design for the heroine Vasanthalakshmi in Kutrala Kuravanji, was a costume with parrot motifs. I was intrigued by it. I have been collecting saris since, as it is a big part of costuming for Bharatanatyam. So when I was commissioned for ‘Vastrasmaranam,’ I was excited.” — Justin McCarthy
