Thundering excellence in choreographies at Natya Vriksha’s World Dance day 2024 Utsav

Smt. Leela Venkataraman and Natya Vriksha's Geeta Chandran

April 2024 saw the 17th edition of the World Dance Day celebrations held by Guru Geeta Chandran’s Natya Vriksha in Delhi. What an enormous achievement that is! It is a pious day for me too and what better place to go and pay your obeisance than IIC Delhi, where the festival is held? The annual WDD celebrations are the result of gargantuan effort by Geeta and Rajiv Chandran and her team of disciples, who have been selflessly hosting this event. We are lucky to be invited and be a part of this event, which engages with varied aspects of dance. 

 Workshop on dance techniques in Sattriya by Prateesha Suresh

The Day 1 activities on 20 April started with a workshop on dance techniques in Sattriya from 9.30 a.m. to 1 p.m. by Prateesha Suresh along with artists from Assam. To be in Delhi is a big disadvantage when it comes to distances and the time of commute and I had to give the workshop a miss. The Lifetime Achievement Award was conferred on Smt. Leela Venkataraman, better known as Leela maami in dance circles. Leela ji is a legend in dance circles, with her nearly five decades of dance writing and critiquing, including being the most renowned dance columnist for the most prestigious newspapers in Delhi. She has written multiple books on the Indian classical dances and participated in dance seminars and workshops in India and abroad. The Sangeet Natak Akademi awardee is an institution for all dancers and for dance writers like myself.

Natya Vriksha's Rajiv Chandran with Smt. V.R. Devika

A book launch and discussion by the author V.R. Devika was held at 4.15 p.m. The book was titled ‘Rukmini Devi Arundale, Arts Revivalist and Institution Builder’ and was launched to mark the 120th birth anniversary of the dance legend. Dr. Devika’s vast research and immense knowledge made the talk very interesting, as did the short video clips of Rukmini akka herself speaking about her career. Dr. Devika’s talk dispelled many controversies that surrounded Rukmini ji in her lifetime. The first copy was presented to Ashok Vajpeyi.

 

Bharatanatyam by Vaishnavi Srinivasan and Nivedha Harish

As the evening set in after a refreshing coffee break, the day continued with the Young Dancers’ Festival.

Vaishnavi Srinivasan and Nivedha Harish

The first to take the stage were Bharatanatyam dancers Vaishnavi Srinivasan and Nivedha Harish, disciples of Guru Roja Kannan. Their first presentation was a stuti or a prayer song. This is known as the stuti pancharatna, performed in praise of deities of the Hindu pantheon. It was choreographed by Guru Adyar K. Lakshman. The composition was in raag maalike and taal malike. 

 

The dancers wore striped aharyams and started with nritta featuring expansive hand movements and exact footwork with very elaborate jatis. Ganesh was shown with swaying ears, lambodar, the trunk with multiple stances, the mouse as his steed and the two-armed stance Ganesha by the dancer standing behind. 

Shadanana or Lord Muruga was depicted riding his peacock, holding his spear. Shiva was portrayed with his poisoned blue throat, as Chandrashekhar, wearing the chandra on his head and with jata, riding the Nandi, playing the damru, the one who destroys evil. 

 

Lord Vishnu was shown with four arms, holding the shankh and the chakra. The devi was depicted as ‘sarv bhooteshu, shakti roopen sansthita’, one dancer portraying the lion steed and the other as the devi, trishul in hand, induvadana. Krishna was shown as the Gopinath, the kaustabh mani on his chest, playing the flute and doing the raas with his gopis. The nattuvangam and the footwork was powerful. 

 

The second piece was a swarajati in raag Hussaini, taal roopak. As Roja Kannan elaborated, the late Guru Laxmi Viswanathan had been working on the devadasi tradition of Thanjavur and she, Vaishani and Nivedha got a call from her about this project. She wanted to recreate the performance of a devadasi called Thanjavur Gnyana. In 1875, Thanjavur Gnyana performed this swarajati at the great hall in the Royapuram Railway Station in Chennai for the visit of the Prince of Wales in the presence of the Nawab of Arcot and a galaxy of zamindars and royalty. Guru Laxmi wanted to recreate the magic of that performance from 1875 and Guru Roja Kannan, Vaishnavi and Nivedha did so in 2023 at Kalakshetra. 

 

She retained the choreography of the jatis from Kalashetra, and Guru Laxmi gave her inputs for the abhinaya section. Since Guru Laxmi had already learnt it from her guru, Kanjivaram Ellappa, and performed it many times, she had a vision of the organic progression of the abhinaya in the swarajati, which she shared with Roja Kannan and her disciples. For the later part, the charnam, Guru Laxmi had forgotten the original choreography and gave Roja Kannan the freedom to go with her own choreography in the panchnadai. 

The nattuvangam by Roja Kannan was very rhythmic and the two girls performed very confidently, chiselled nritta. The footwork was powerful and accurate, with leaps and leg lifts. Their eyes also moved with them as they moved all over the stage. 

 

In the abhinaya portion, they depicted  the hero pleading with the khandita nayika that he simply yearns for a glance or a few words from her. She looks at him condescendingly. His heart throbs and her emotions sway. As the jatis would vary in speed, so would the neck and eye movements, becoming slow and gentle. Finally, the nayika escapes the grip of the nayak. The two dancers covered the entire stage with their nritta, moving in all directions and diagonally as well.

Kathak by Divya Goswami

Divya Goswami

The dancer who took the stage next dances with her heart and emotions. As she takes the stage, her emotions become palpable in the atmosphere, her expressions and eyes telling the tale. Divya Goswami is a renowned Kathak exponent who learnt the traditions of the Lucknow gharana under Guru Yogini Gandhi and Guru Munna Shukla ji, and is presently being mentored by Guru Kamalini Dutt.

Divya began by reciting her poetry: ‘My heart is small, invisible to you. How can you place pain, ego and judgements within? My mind a puzzle beyond the words unsaid, how will you unfold the thoughts, fears and ideas? My soul inconspicuous, yet the medium to take me higher. How will you solve the mystery of love, awareness and surrender? With opalescent eyes of watchfulness, the One, the Light, the Divine, said, your eyes are small but behold the world. Your heartbeat is a chaos but the rhythm to your dance. Your thoughts a maze but abundant with messages of love. Your soul is the light; losing this you and me on the path of love.’

She then recited an excerpt from the qissa of Sohni Mahiwal written by the poet Fazal Shah Sayyad. She also recited the translation, which said give me the pen of courage dipped in the ink of awareness to write about such a love that transcends the fourteen worlds. You and I become irrelevant in this large scheme of love. Let go of the self tied to the body. 

‘Aqeedat’ was the name of Divya’s production, based on Fazal Shah’s Qissa, telling the story of Sohni Mahiwal. She commenced with a mangalacharan based on Fazal Shah’s lines. The costume she wore was red and so were the kurtas of her all the male musicians accompanying her – Praveen D. Rao on tabla (and music composition), Keerthi Kumar on padhant, Siddharth Belamannu on vocal, Sameer Rao on flute, Sarfaraz Khan on sarangi and Zohaib Hassan on harmonium. 

Teary-eyed, Divya moved with a diya in her hand as she squatted in the dhyan mudra and the finger rising upwards showing the communion with the supersoul. Dancing to the poetry, she showed an embrace from which the beloved disappears, the heart throwing out and then gathering the pieces. The love of Sohni and Mahiwal, which is pure love, is equivalent to the love of the soul and supersoul. Divya depicted the love rising and then entering the body again to reside in the heart and the soul. From her gleaming eyes, you knew she was already in her zone.

This was followed by a nritta section in teen taal with progressive laya. The nritta had a very confident Divya dancing with elan to her musicians and padhant. She danced pairon ki uthan, thaat with nazaqat and style, footwork with the ghunghroos jingling, baat-cheet with the tabla, tukde, aamad, Acchan Maharaj ki bandish, tripali with expanse, tihai dohre bol, dohra dum, chakardar paran, cutting across the stage aamad. in the drut laya visham ank ginti ki tihai, foot lift on sam,7 ank aur 9 ank ki farmaishi tihai vipreet ginti ki tihai, annagat paran in drut, permelu with leaps, aadhe chakkar ki paran 5 aur 7 ka rela, 20 chakkar ki paran ending in footwork in drut. Obviously, Divya’s tayyari was great, her hold on the technique and her ang vinyas was flawless. 

After a flute interlude, she was back with a new dupatta. Divya talked about her long-cherished dream to translate her mother tongue, Punjabi, and its rich literature into the idiom of her form, Kathak. She had discussed the idea with her mentor, G.S. Channi, prominent theatre personality and scholar, and they started work on it in 2019, but it never materialized because he was taken away by COVID. The idea remained as a seed in her heart. She felt that she wanted it to take form when Rajiv and Geeta Chandran called her for the Natya Vriksha performance, and she started work on ‘Aqeedat’. This is the work of Fazal Shah in the format of qissa, a unique form of literature – poetry, but almost like a novel. She discussed it with Guru Kamalini Dutt, who was not only supportive of the idea but also made it happen much beyond Divya’s imagination. Divya also said that she chose to present it at Rajiv and Geeta Chandran’s WDD event since she knew it was a place where it would be received with openness. Divya added that it was her mother who helped in uncovering the hidden meanings of the work and finding scholars to translate and explain the text, which was abbreviated for presentation. Praveen D. Rao composed and brought the work to life, she added.

The epic story of Sohni and Mahiwal dates back to the 10th century; the couple’s mazaar can still be found in Hyderabad, Pakistan. Divya said that it was Kamalini amma who saw the process from the inception to the end of the production. The qissa or the tale says that Sohni was born to a potter, was herself a potter. Izzat Beg was a merchant who, on one of his journeys to and from Dilli, comes across goods packed in exquisite pots of all sizes and decorations. He goes looking for the creator and finds the potter – Sohni.
He gives everything up and stays on as Mahiwal, the shepherd. Sohni means ‘beautiful’ and she is named so not because she is beautiful, but because she defines beauty: her eyes, her lips, everything about her is beautiful. Their love is so pure that it cannot be hidden and the whole village is talking about it. The elders in her family come to know of it and they lock Sohni alone in a room. But they cannot be kept apart for long. Sohni takes one of her pots every night and swims across the Chenab to meet her lover. One night, a dark shadow sees her going and the conspiracy against her takes root. On the appointed night, as the darkness descends amidst the rain and the storm and lightning, Sohni wants to leave to meet her lover. As she begins her journey across, she realizes that her pot has been replaced by another pot which was not properly baked. She does not want to come back either, and she pleads to all – nature, the river creatures, the clay pot – to assist her across the river to meet her lover one last time. If at all she is caught by the alligator, he should prey upon her, but leave her eyes so that she can see him one last time – body, blood, breath not needed. And one last time, she jumps into the river. The waiting Mahiwal receives the message of her death. Aqueedut from me to you, from us to love and from love to the divine – that’s how Divya closed her narrative.

As a kathakar, she used Kathak to depict Sohni’s beauty, her fish-like eyes, a gait like the hansa or swan. She flits like the peacock, dancing like it; the stars come to make her jewellery, her earrings, her mang teeka. Her red lips, like petals, attract bees, her snake-like hair shown by a gat. The heart misses a beat when she passes by. As she walks with her pot on her head, her swinging gait was shown through a gat. She plays with the water as she goes to fill the pots. Sohni and Mahiwal fall in love, embrace, kiss – this was very sensually portrayed. But a love so intense cannot be hidden from the world. Her family grab her and forcefully lock her up as she looks on despondently. She removes all her ornaments and refuses to eat.
She then walks out in the middle of night, gets a clay pot, holds a tree, jumps with the pot into the river and swims across. The act was shown using nritta and tukde. She returns on the pot and locks herself in again. The lovers make promises for the next night. Divya depicted Sohni carrying the pot back using a stylized gat. The wicked soul who had seen her replaces the pot and breaks the one that she had used the previous night. 

The fateful night was created using red light and sounds of lightning and thunder. When she touched her pot, Sohni knew that it was half-baked and would dissolve in the water. Deciding not to break her promise, she decides to go. Wordlessly, to the background music of the flute, she makes a request to her pot to see her through. Divya went on to show the jump into the river, the alligator approaching at a crawl, the strong waves, the drowning, in a powerful manner. It is the river and the aquatic creatures who take the news to Mahiwal, who jumps into the river. The drowning Sohni’s eyes are open in wait. The two unite in their death, drowning in the whirlpool in an embrace. Just as the lovers were two in life and one in death, so is the soul that unites with the supersoul. The kundalini rises and the unification happens in the sahasrara. In the final moment of the chakkars, Divya touched her eyes, her lips, her chest or the heart and then her abdomen with her finger. Love in its purest form is perceived by all the senses – what you see, say, touch and feel is not significant until it encompasses your entire being, which then rises to the spiritual spectrum of the sahasrara chakra and leads to the total surrender of the being.

Divya Goswami danced the tale with her heart and soul. It was not just Kathak that she danced, it was the poetess inside her that danced the poetry, the writer inside her who wanted to show every emotion of this immortal story. She cried on stage and made most of the audience cry too. No more words can describe the performance. A divine experience.
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Day 2 of the celebrations, 21 April, began with another session of movement techniques in Sattriya by Prateesha Suresh, followed by a seminar on ‘Legacy in classical dance’. The senior gurus and dance exponents on the panel were Guru Sadanam Balakrishnan, Dr. Anita Ratnam, Smt Roja Kannan, Smt. Indira Kadambi, Dr. Neena Prasad and Smt. Prateesha Suresh. Each one of them has a rich legacy which they have imbibed and are passing on to the next generation, their disciples. The discussion was laden with a rich, inherited knowledge. 

Thomas Vo Van Tao – Mohiniattam

 

 

 

Thomas Vo Van Tao

 

 

Guru Dr. Neena Prasad

This was followed by the Young Dancers’ Festival. The first dancer for the evening was Thomas Vo Van Tao performing Mohiniattam, a disciple of Guru Dr. Neena Prasad. The dance form does not have very many male practitioners today, but seeing Thomas was a treat since not once did he seem discomfited by the fact. He carried himself very effortlessly in all the swaying and lyricism of the form. 

 

Thomas wore a white dhoti with a golden border and a golden chain as the sutra. He presented a cholukatta in mishra jati, raag Ghambhirnatakam, taal triputa, an invocatory piece for Lord Ganesha. The nritta was very expansive, covering the entire stage. With his tall frame, he moved effortlessly, his hastas showing Ganapati as the priye tanay of Gauri Shankar, his trunk gaj mukh, and swaying ears. 

The second piece was a varnam in raag Shankarabharnam, adi taal. This was followed by a stava  varnam. Unlike the nayika-oriented varnams composed by Swathi Tirunal, these varnams have devotion as the main element. The lord shames the beauty of Kamadev. Rama ave akhila ripu virama – here, the enemies are not just evil demons but also the enemies within. The ego is also our enemy and has to be eradicated. 

 

The story is based on a folk tale. Arjuna visits Rameshwaram and sees the bridge or the setu on the ocean made by the monkeys. He muses that Rama could have built the bridge with his arrows. There was no need to have the monkeys make it. But Hanuman, who was there, told Arjuna that the bridge could not have taken the weight of all the monkeys and bears crossing it. Arjuna makes the bridge with his arrows and Hanuman destroys it with the weight of his tail. A dejected Arjuna is ready to immolate himself when he prays to Krishna. The lord himself comes to save him. He asks Arjuna to make the bridge again and Hanuman to destroy it. But it does not break this time because Arjuna was praying to Krishna and Hanuman had assumed that he could destroy anything. This is a touching fable that teaches one to surrender one’s self at the feet of the lord.

Thomas took the stance of Rama in great style, with his waist and torso swaying. His hands showed how He destroys enemies inside and out. Arjuna shoots arrows to make a bridge and takes pride in it. Thomas depicted Hanuman destroying it with a slight touch. A distraught Arjuna wants to end his life. At Krishna’s behest, he makes it again. Hanuman, shown with drooping hands and stance, applies all his force but cannot destroy it this time. He joins his hands in front of the disguised Krishna. 

The poetry further describes the beauty of Rama: charu roop, eyes like a fish’s, the face like a lotus and his locks like the bees on it. His arms like the stems of lotuses, chest broad like the lion’s, holding the bow and arrow. The tilak on his forehead. Thomas then depicted the tale of Ahalya uddhar – Ahalya is cheated by Indra and then cursed to become a stone. Even Kamadeva pales in front of  Rama.

The next piece was a padam, ‘Aliveni Endu’ in raag Kurunji, taal mishrachapu. Here, the nayika is in viraha or pain, waiting for Lord Padmanabha. As the lord reclines on his shesh shaiyya, she burns. She applies chandan and waits for the moon to cool her pain. The flowers from the jasmine tree, which she collects, do not help, the cool breeze does not help. All that and the humming aggravate her pain. 

The last piece was a thillana in raag Tilang, roopak talam. This dancer was very blithe with this nritta too. The thillana progressed in laya. The footwork was gentle yet accurate and so were the hands and the swaying  with leg lifts and foot lifts. His eyes also moved with the rhythm. It ended with an ode to Lord Shiva, who rides the Nandi. He is the omkara and naad roopam.

Thomas has entered a largely female field, since the form is very lilting and swaying. But his very affable smile, his very impressive stage presence and the rhythm in his movements made you concentrate on simply taking pleasure in the performance.

Meera Sreenarayanan

Meera Sreenarayanan

The next performer for the evening was Bharatanatyam dancer Meera Sreenarayanan. We in Delhi get to watch Guru Indira Kadambi and her disciples only occasionally. But when Meera walked on to the stage, one could already feel the confidence of the dancer and that she was here to captivate the attention of the audience. 

Guru Indira Kadambi

Accompanying Meera on nattuvangam was her guru Indira Kadambi and also Himanshu Srivastava, with Bijeesh Krishna on vocals, Charudutt V.V. on mridangam and G. Raghavendra Prasath on violin. 

The first piece was a dhyan shloka followed by a khanda jati allaripu. ‘Gajananam, vighneshwaram’: this was an ode to Ganapati. Meera looked radiant in her red sari. The stotra asked Maa Meenakshi for karuna, showing the waves of mercy that flow through the mother’s eyes. She wears a flower in her braid. The bhakta pleads at her feet with a pushpanjali. Meera performed nritta with chiselled hastas and footwork. The jati, with a squat and a knee bend, was well-executed. 

This was followed by a varnam. ‘Danike’ is a composition of the nattavunar Shivanand Pillai of the  Thanjavur quartet. It is believed that it was created for the famous courtesan, Mannargudi Meenakshi, to be performed in praise of the maharaja of Thanjavur, Sivaji II, at his court. It is a paradoxical praise of the king. The dancer says that the other girl is a perfect match for you, but she means herself. The varnam was in raag Todi, roopak talam. The courtesan comes veiled and makes her salutations to the king and to the musicians. She flips her ghunghat around to hold her choti. This assertive entry was followed by power-packed jatis covering the entire stage, across and diagonal, even the back. 

The abhinaya portions spoke about the other woman being just right for union with the king. They have like minds but her eyes are like arrows, says the courtesan. She is made for you. You are strong. Keep the evil eye at bay. Go and embrace her, I beg of you. Your heart throbs for her moon face, like the bee on the lotus. You have the money and the power and she has the brains. You are the Sivaji Maharaj, with your palace, moustache, turban and throne. As she bows out in slow nritta, swaying, she gets a ring in reward. As the birds coo and the arrows of Kamadeva strike, please, go quick, as she yearns for the union, the dancer says. Her lips want to drink the nectar from yours. Meera drops the braid back and puts on the veil to cover her face. It was only when the courtesan looks at the maharaja from behind the veil that she gives way to all the emotions that she had pent up within her. 

Meera has mastered her nritta. There is a plethora of jatis that she employs with ease, with chiselled, sharp movements. She was very agile with her footwork, her hastas sharp, with leaps and balance. When she would come to a sam in the nritta portions of the varnam, she perfectly enjoyed her footwork and conversation with the percussionist. Her abhinaya, too, of a spurned courtesan who cannot socially get the position she yearns for, was apt.

The next piece was something that I would like to delve a little longer into. I have seen Geeta Chandran giving different interpretations to ‘Krishna nee begane baro’. And most moving was when a bhakta calls out to the lord to come soon to save him from the bhavasagar. Likewise, Tulsidas’s ‘Shri Ram Chandra kripalu bhajaman’ has been danced by many dancers. But this particular interpretation shook me in and out. Whenever you listen to the Manas or Valmiki Ramayana, the character of Ma Kaushalya touches you. She was the eldest of the three queens but her love for all the four sons was not biased. When Rama is exiled for 14 years, she tells him to leave because that was what his father and Ma Kaikeyi had asked him to do. It was a sacrifice that was made, perhaps one above any other in history. The piece was a different interpretation of the bhajan in Yaman Kalyani, taal mishrachapu.

Kaushalya is waiting in her chamber for Rama to come back after his 14-year exile. She knows that he has become a great warrior and hero after winning the war in Lanka. She keeps going to the window and the door to look for him. Reminiscing about his childhood, she gets the palana out and dusts its sheets, dusts his toys. Then she pulls out the anklets that he wore as a baby when he frolicked around the palace, playing with her. She had picked him up when he falls and taiught him to walk, holding his finger. She would clean the dust on him with her aanchal. 

As he grows older, she dresses him up, puts tilak on his forehead and a small mukut on his head, gives him his bow and arrow and teaches him to shoot. When it strikes the target, she, as a proud mother, wards off evil by taking balaiyya. She prays to the Almighty that he become a great king. And then he marries and she gets her Rama-Sita in her palace amidst an aarti. This all she is reminiscing and meera as Kaushalya depicted the waves of emotions the mother is going through. After that, he leaves home for 14 years. Her eyes yearn to see him now. 

As she turns, planning what she will feed him and what she will ask about the bygone years, he arrives in her chamber. Her reactions are of wonderment at her small child who ate from her hands, slept in her lap – today, he is a king and a hero. All the expressions come to her as she doesn’t know what her heart feels. Meera dissected each and every emotion of a mother’s heart as she is about to meet her long separated child in a padam. Tears streaked down her eyes and I think even my cheeks were wet. She captured each thought, memory and fear that a mother whose children are far away goes through, even if they are grown up. That umbilical cord that is never severed, the blood that still wants to nourish a part of their body. The piece did not deserve an applause, but a salutation to the guru and her disciple for touching the strings of many hearts. This is not a report or a review of the performance that engaged my heart. May be the World Dance Day this year turned out to be a tear-jerker for me.
Next, Meera performed a thillana composed by C.V. Chandrashekhar, which her guru had learnt from Chandrashekhar sir and passed on to her.
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All these performers had musicians accompanying them, who were all excellent in each performance. They enhanced the performance, adding to the experience. In each case, all the elements – vocals, percussion, violin and nattuvangam – complemented the performance perfectly while being brilliant on their own.
The World Dance Day celebrations by Natya Vriksha leave an indelible mark on your memory. Everything is very well managed and organized by Rajiv and Geeta Chandran and all their disciples. But there is always a niggling feeling that the picture is not complete without a short piece by the dancers of the company itself. Your mind and body are not tired and there is still some unquenched thirst for more.