Carnatic vocalist Dr. Prema Rangarajan is one happy woman. She has managed to unearth several rare thillanas in unusual talas such as Simhanandana and Hanumathkumba.
The project, which came out of a Fellowship from the Ministry of Culture, also helped Dr. Rangarajan to highlight thillanas in more familiar ragas and talas but which have almost disappeared from the concert circuit, replaced by more recent ones by composers of the 20th and 21st centuries.
The singer has traced the history of the thillana form to the Chola era, showing that it was arranged by Melattur Veerabadraiah a couple of centuries ago.
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At a recent event, Dr. Prema and veteran dancer-guru Nandini Ramani discussed the role of the thillana in music and dance recitals. Invariably, it is the concluding piece in any recital, with its pacy rhythm and sollus.
Ms. Ramani spoke of how in music, sangatis were common, with scope for manodharma, but in dance, there were strict formats which had to be adhered to. She described how the approach to performing a thillana has changed in the last few decades, a point confirmed by senior dancer Priyadarshini Govind in her talk.
Dr. Rangarajan sang a few rare thillanas such as Maha Vaidyanatha Sivan’s ‘Gowrinayaka’ in Kanada (rupaka tala). The composer had repeated the same thillana in Kalyani but in simhanandana tala, which consisted of more than a hundred aksharas, so much so that it sounded rather slow.
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Other rare compositions were Mysore Chowdiah's Gatibeda thillana, Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar’s in Kamavardhini raga, set to ragavardhini tala and Mysore Vasudevachar’s composition in rare Suddha Salavi. Dr. Rangarajan was accompanied by her disciple Kalpalatika on vocals, Padma Shankar on the violin, and Mannarkoil Balaji on the mridangam.
Finally, Nandini Ramani took the stage to demonstrate some strict korvais set for thillanas, a few of which were danced by her daughter/disciple Sushama Ranganathan.
Ms. Ramani's Guru Kandappa Pillai, also the guru of T. Balasaraswathi, spent some time in the legendary Uday Shankar’s dance school and was exposed to Kathak. He had set a difficult korvai inspired by Kathak, which Nandini performed.
Vidwans P.S. Narayanaswami and B. Krishnamoorthy were also present at the show.