Vaibhav Arekar transforms Bharatanatyam into a well-choreographed show with his music, lighting and movements. You may either admire his style, sense of space and timing or be startled by his audacious visualisation.
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Vaibhav Arekar performing his margam ‘Akasha’ at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha’s Margazhi festival in December 2022. | Photo Credit: RAGHUNATHAN S.R.
Vaibhav is an unconventional artiste, who has made a name for himself in dance-theatre. In his hands, the ubiquitous margam becomes a theatrical experience. It is a team effort with specialists — Sushant Jadhav (lighting) filling the stage at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha with an unusual white wash, using colour selectively; Mahesh Swamy (flute), Kaleeshwara Pillai (nattuvangam) and Satish Krishnamurthy (mridangam, kanjira) building up momentum when there isn’t any while Srikanth Gopalakrishnan (vocal) and Vishwesh Swaminathan (violin) offering excellent melody.
Purists may balk, but one has to give room for change for the sake of continuity of the classical tradition. At his recital, Vaibhav’s margam had new pieces and new perspectives for the old. His theme was ‘Akasha’. The two opening pieces emphasised this — an unusual alarippu in the ancient 24-akshara Udghatta tala (marga tala revived by percussionist-scholar Guru Bharadwaj) and Dikshitar’s Kedaragowla kriti, ‘Anandanatana prakasam’, both on the Akasha Linga (cosmic dancer).
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Vaibhav Arekar performing a margam, ‘Akasha’ at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha’s Margazhi festival, in December 2022. | Photo Credit: RAGHUNATHAN S.R.
The alarippu in Udghatta was a combination of 4s and 5s with 3s, peppered with the sollu ‘Udghatta’ and Shiva-mudras. It ended with an arms-up flourish ‘Udghatta tham.’ This is Vaibhav’s style. He looks for ways to enhance the overall effect of his dance — in the kriti he used the evocative kanjira for Shiva tandava, and he contrasted busy nritta with a surprise silence in the end.
Vaibhav Arekar performing a margam ‘Akasha’ at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha’s Margazhi festival, in December 2022. | Photo Credit: RAGHUNATHAN S.R.
His visualisation of the varnam with a message of love from the sakhi to the nayaka, Srinivasa, ‘Daani kori’ (Vasantha, Mishra Jhampa, Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar), was a study in dramatics. The pallavi was sung like a virutham to show us what the sakhi sees, as a prelude. The sancharis detailed the nayika’s state of hopelessness, her absorption in thoughts of Srinivasa. There were three characters in the piece, but Vaibhav’s role-play was always clear. While the sakhi took centre stage, he did not speak of the nayaka as a godhead but stuck to the lyrics describing the attributes and the plight of the nayika. It was padartha abhinaya dramatised as angika abhinaya, busy and sometimes lokadharmic; it may keep the audience engaged, but is without depth.
A Marimutha Pillai ninda stuti (‘Edukkittanai modi’, Surutti and a Purvi thillana (Rupakam, T. Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar) followed where he performed a whole segment of diagonal movements. Sometimes he does not move, and leaves it to the orchestra. What sees Vaibhav through is his sophistication and stage presence.