Kuchipudi dancer Sandhya Raju with her presentation ‘Tales of Gods & Love’ spectacularly strung together set of Kuchipudi items, mesmerising one and all at the full-house Shilpkala Vedika on a Sunday morning.
Trained under Gurus Vempati Chinna Satyam and Kishore Mosalikanti, Sandhya began her performance with ‘Pranavakaram Siddhi Vinayakam’, a composition of Oothukadu Venkata Subhiah, set to ragam Aarabhi, talam Aadi. Choreographed by her guru Kishore Mosalikanti, in the invocatory piece to Lord Ganesha, Sandhya performed very majestically. One must admit that this Ganesha piece was different and it had the dancer’s stamp of essaying the choreography to perfection
For her recital, Sandhya chose two Annamacharya kirtanas.
The first one, Muddugare Yashodha , she dedicated to the mothers and children in the audience. In this piece, Sandhya so beautifully brought out the motherly instincts of Yashodha, the pranks of little Krishna, abduction of princess Rukmini and the battle of Kaliya.
The second one was another popular kirtana, Brahamam Okate. The dancer’s shift from arduous to relaxing steps was fabulous.
The highlight of the performance was ‘Shringara Veera’, a composition of Vedantam Ramalinga Sastry choreographed by Sandhya herself was presented for the first time to the audience here. Parvati comes to Shiva’s tapovanam for her daily rituals and offers flowers to the Lord, who has been in deep penance mourning the death of Sati.
But, the God of Love (Manmadha) shoots cupid’s arrow on knowing Parvati’s mind. Sandhya has done justice to the characters of Siva, Parvati and Manmadha all coming in quick succession. Somehow the ending was too abrupt, one felt. Sandhya is precise in her actions and she is highly agile. Her distinction is her modernised adavus. Sandhya returned on the stage with her disciples of Nishrinkala Dance Academy to perform the traditional ‘Taayamaalika tillana’. Written and composed by M Balamurli Krishna choreographed by Kishore Mosalikanti the piece brought out the vibrancy in the classical recital.
Six students — two boys and four girls, of the dance academy along with Sandhya very strikingly were in sync with the rhythms and beats with joyous expression on their face.
