Swing from rustic tales to contemporary issues

Folk dance remains a crowd-puller at arts fete

Gifty V. John, St. Sebastian’s HSS, Velimanam, Kannur, who bagged the first prize in the folk dance (HSS Girls category), strikes an expressive pose. Photo: K. Ragesh

The Malabar Christian College Ground was packed on Sunday. Little wonder. Folk dancers were on the stage.

Folk dance has always been one of the biggest crowd-pullers of the State School Arts Festivals, from the time it made its debut in the second edition, held in Thiruvananthapuram in 1958. Two students from the host district, S. Girija (GGHS, Cotton Hill) and S. Thankappan Nair (HS, Dhanuvachapuram) were the winners then. The event, over the years, saw several outstanding dancers charm the large crowds across the State. Some of them, such as Vineeth, Manju Warrier, Ambili Devi, Ponnambili, Ambili Devi, Sonia G. Nair, and Edavela Babu went on to become film stars. And, there were also winners such as K.T. Usha and Neena Prasad who became prominent Mohiniyattom dancers. Ms. Usha, who won prizes in six consecutive years, is regarded as the finest folk dancers the festival has seen. “She was my senior by a few years, but I still remember her folk dances. Usha’s dance was such a delight to watch,” Ms. Prasad says.

Ms. Usha was taught by Shyamala Ramachandran. “The folk dance those days was nothing like what we see today,” she says. “The enactment of suffering has increased and ‘screaming’ is also a bit too high,” she says.

Girija Chandran, who had choreographed Ms. Prasad’s prize-winning dance in 1985, agrees. “Folk dance was much more varied earlier,” she says.

Shyamala says teachers of her time used to work hard on choreography. “For Poomala , which was a masterpiece for Usha and V.K. Prasanth, another student of mine, there were as many as 10 steps for one line,” she says.

G.K. Srihari, the 1996 Kalaprathibha, says the event in his time tried more to tell stories rather than focus on contemporary issues, the current trend. “I had danced the stories of Ekalavya, a sculptor, and a fisherwoman,” he says. “Folk dance has to be simple; there is no need to complicate it,” he says. Some of the dances may have been repetitive, some others may a bit too ‘hysterical,’ and many focussed on how hard the life of a woman is.