V. Soundarya, a disciple of J. Suryanarayanamurthy, Jayanthi Subramaniam and Bragha Bessell, presented a Bharatanatyam recital for this sabha recently. It commenced with a beautiful ragamalika invocation based on the opening verses of Kalidasa's Shyamala Dandakam dedicated to Goddess Saraswati.
A show that started well, turned out to be memorable for all the wrong reasons. No, not that the dancer fared poorly, it was the story of a whole ghana-raga composition going flat. An unusual happening, given that all the artists but the dancer, were seniors, and that no one made mistakes. The composition in question was Sitarama Iyer's ragamalika ‘Nityakalyani,' that describes the different facets of Devi. And the choreography was by the esteemed guru Adyar K. Lakshman.
There were many reasons why this happened- the hesitance of the vocalist, the lull in action each time the switch in ragas took place (which was seven times), and the dancer's lack of energy.
The only saviours were Kalaiarasan (violin) whose melody shone like a beacon light and Nellai D. Kannan (mridangam) who tried his best to infuse energy into the performance.
Then suddenly in the second half of the recital, the clouds cleared and the sun came out, in a manner of speaking. Everything suddenly fell into place.
The two padams and the Khamas thillana (Adi, K. Hariprasad) brought out the best in the vocalist (Nandini Anand) and in the dancer, who seemed to blossom and show her true potential only then.
From the sarcastic namaste to Yashoda in the beginning, to the victorious look the gopi cast at Krishna in the end when she succeeded in getting Him into trouble, ‘Thaye Yashoda' (Thodi, Oothukadu Venkatasubbier) was an experience to be savoured. The confident ‘Swadeenapathika Nayika' was also well-rendered in the Paras javali, ‘Swarasundaraguni.' Kudos to Bragha for the visualisations.
With Kannan's nimble beats adding to the vibrancy, the thillana proved to be a grand finale.
The dancer showed involvement and energy and gave the exciting choreography (Jayanthi) its due.
Jayanthi (nattuvangam) provided calm and self-assured guidance through the ups and downs of the presentation.
