Parvathi Menon and Shijith Nambiar acting at The Music Academy dance competition
| Photograph Credit score: S. Thanthoni
The excessive level of the efficiency by Parvati Menon and Shijith Nambiar for the Music Academy Dance competition was the Ashtapadi carried out by Parvathi, which offers with the intimacy between Radha and Krishna, visualised with nice candour within the Verse ‘Sakhi he keshi madhanmudaram’ by Jayadeva in Gita Govindam. Addressing her sakhi to go and fetch Krishna, Radha reminisces about her romantic moments with him. Starting with the depiction of a bashful Radha coming into the Bower (a girl’s personal condo), Parvati’s delineation of the Ashtapadi unravelled the assorted shades of affection and bodily intimacy with finesse. The primary flush of affection when Krishna’s hand touches her, the tingling response when the peacock feather caresses her physique, the music of the cuckoos including fervour to their dalliance on a mattress of leaves and flowers, and the anklet bells disturbing them — these sancharis crammed with poetic expressions lingered for lengthy. The lilting melody of raga Yamuna Kalyani suited the temper of the composition (Musical rating: Edapalli Ajith Kumar).
Shijith Nambiar then adopted it up with Kavi Kunjara Bharathi’s ‘Swami mayuragiri vadivela’ in raga Khamas, which explored the concepts expressed within the composition by the eyes of a peacock. The grace of the neck actions, the gait and the fluttering of the feathers have been lovely, however overdoing the actions repeatedly made it look caricaturish.
Elaborate exploration
Prior to those two Abhinaya-oriented compositions, The dancers started their efficiency with Arunagirinathar’s Thiruppugazh ‘Muthaitharu pathitirunagai’ and an alarippu, and took up Papanasam Sivan’s Nattakurinji varnam ‘Swami naan undhan adimai’ for an elaborate exploration. Shifting away from the usual presentation of a varnam, the dancers explored the play of spotlights to deal with the person expressions. The adavu patterns exploring the spatial dimensions of the stage have been choreographed aesthetically.
The descriptions of the udukkai, snake, tiger pores and skin and different particulars of the physicality of the type of Shiva, the refined erotic intimacy of Shiva and Shakti, and the reverberance and energy of the sound of Om have been interwoven within the narration of a track expressing the craving of a devotee in search of the grace of the lord.
These moments have been interspersed with sequences of jathi korvais in diverse kala pramanams and fascinating formations. However then, they stretched it too lengthy with every of them doing a solo nritta earlier than dancing it as a duo. This additionally disturbed the temper of intense devotion that the composition warranted.
Binu V. Gopal’s melodic vocal assist enhanced the visible expertise. Nattuvangam was by Uday Shankar Lal Shivaprasad (mridangam), Vijesh Gopalkrishnan (kanjira), Eshwar Ramakrishnan (violin) and Sruti Sagar (glute) offered robust assist. The lighting design was by Victor Paulraj.