Raining taal

T R Dhandapany

On the 4^th of July, ‘Laya Gana Nritya Madhura Lahiri’ was held at IHC in Delhi. The concert is the brainchild of leading percussionist Sh. T. R. Dhandapany. A renowned exponent of Talavadhyam, he is perceived as the pioneer who brought percussion and percussion instruments to centrestage. Percussion is usually seen as an accompaniment, or secondary. In this concert, equal importance was given to vocals, both Hindustani and Carnatic, melodic instruments, percussion instruments and dance forms.

Praskar Nirwan, Kiran Kumar and Suraj Nirwan

Dhandapany took his initial training in mridangam from Sikkal Shri Natesa Iyer. Later, he specialized under the tutelage of Late Shri Harihara Sharma and Shri KM Vaidyanathan. He has been performing for the last five decades and has accompanied many top-ranking musicians. He started the taalvadya programmes in1980 to bring percussion instruments to the centrestage. In 1982, to ‘Laya Gana Madhura Lahiri’, he added music to make it more attractive to the audience. Since then, he has given more than 350 of these performances at various cultural events in India and abroad. In 2001, nritya was added to the programme and the title. This, he said, was done to give it a more holistic approach. The dance was added to give it a visual aspect on the request of European audiences. His son, who organizes the events, said that they thoughtfully incorporated the theme of the seasons to the choreography. He wanted to welcome the advent of monsoon by ending with a composition on the monsoon. He was accompanied by Sh D. Kartik Narayanan on mridangam, R. Krishnan on Morsing, P. V. Raghvanasimhan on ghatam, R. Ramkumar on pakhawaj , Suraj Nirwan on tabla , G. Navneeth on kanjira, Dr. S. Vasudevan on Carnatic vocal and nattuvangam, Sudhanshu Sharma on Hindustani vocals and Parhant, D. Venkatasubramanian on violin and music composition, Gayathri Sharma on violin and vocals, Kiran Kumar on flute, Puraskar Nirwan on sitar, Varsha Ramkumar on Bharatnatyam and Sunny Shishodiya was the Kathak dancer - all together 15 of them.

R Ramakumar, P V Raghavanasimhan, T R Dhandapany, D Karthik Narayanan and G Navneeth

The composition, the music and the choreography were based on a raga to depict the season. They started with winter depicted by Malkauns or Hindolam. The raga was chosen to show the calm and sombreness of winter. The composition was set to Sankirna jati Jampa talam, a cycle of 12 beats. The spring season was depicted by raga Basant. The composition was set to Chatusra jati Matya talam, a cycle of 10 beats. Deepak raag is associated with summer. The composition was in raag Brindavani Sarang and is set to Khanda jati Ata talam, a cycle of 14 beats. The rainy season was depicted using the Malhaar group of raagas. The composition was in miya ki malhar and set to Chatusra Triputa talam, a cycle of 8 beats. 

Gayathri Sharma, D Venkatasubramanian, Sudhanshu Sharma and Dr S Vasudevan

The percussion and the music set hearts racing, besides bringing out the mood of each season. Each performer exhibited his individual skills and then they all performed as a group to finally join in a crescendo. The piece for monsoon had excellent music, the sounds of the rumbling clouds, lightning and rain. Each musician was commendable with mridangam and the tabla player warranted a special mention.

Sunny Shishodiya and Varsha Ramkumar

The dancers, Varsha and Sunny, presented some good nritya. Each season and its composition depicted the state of nature - the birds, the lotuses, the bees and the rivers, the romance between couples. There were some costume changes, a different colour for each season. 

Pics: Anoop Arora

Note: This article first appeared in narthaki.com