Sri Sai Nataraja Academy of Kuchipudi Dance run by noted Kuchipudi exponent P Ramadevi, celebrated its 27th anniversary at Ravindra Bharati, last week. Keeping to the tradition of honouring artistes every year, this year Ramadevi honoured gurus Kala Krishna (dance), Kanna Rao (vocal), P Satyanaranaya of Vijayawada (mridangam) M Sashibhushana Rao (violin) and Voruganti Anand Mohan, founder of a sangeetha sabha.
At this event 55 of her students presented ten items starting with traditional ‘Rangapuja’ featuring 25 students young and old. As the repertoire was traditional they chose to present ‘Vinayaka Kowthvam’, taking the composition of Maha Vaidyanatha Iyer’s Sree Maha Ganapathe Surapathe in Nata. Later another set of dancers presented a number with fine abhinaya to Mysore Vasudevachar’s popular number Maamavathu Sri Saraswathi in Hindolam. They also performed Ramadasu Kirtana Charanamule Nammithi in Kapi ragam.
Later the students chose to present Muthuswami Dikshithar’s Sarasijanabha Sodari in Nagagandhari, Roopaka talam; this one brought out the beauty of Ramadevi’s choreography where she introduced new sets of commendable jatis of varied footwork patterns. This was presented by senior student sadhvika, Divya, Perana, Sravya, Meghan, Yukthi, Vaishnavi and Kruthika.
They also followed it with Sadasiva Brahmendra Saraswathi’s kirtana Bhajare Gopalam in Hindolam. This was followed by Swathi Tirunal’s Kirtana Shankara Srigiri in Hamsanandi. It was the story of Kamadahanam with commendable abhinaya and nritta.
Srini Nellori as Shiva, Raja Rajeswari as Parvathi and Akshara as Manamadha lived upto the characterisation of the story they depicted.
Later some popular but lighter items were present that include Tharangam ‘Krishnam Kalaya Sakhi Sundaram’ that included dances standing on brass plates. The jati dialogue between mridangam and dancers foot work standing on the edges of brass plate holding a water filled brass pot was thrilling.
These were difficult jaties with konugolu. After Rasalela, The event was closed with a rare Tillana penned by Gokarnam Vydyanath Bhagavatar in Poorviragam. Smt.Srivalli Sarma and Sweta Prasad lent vocal support with Renuka Prasad on mridangam. Sai Kolanka on violin, Uma Venkateswarlu on flute and Sreedharacharya’s special effects were laudable.
