Vaibhav Arekar’s offered a margam ‘Akasha’ at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha in December 2022.
| Picture Credit score: RAGHUNATHAN S.R.
Vaibhav Arekar transforms Bharatanatyam right into a well-choreographed present together with his music, lighting and actions. You might both admire his model, sense of area and timing or be startled by his audacious visualisation.
Vaibhav Arekar performing his margam ‘Akasha’ at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha’s Margazhi competition in December 2022.
| Picture Credit score:
RAGHUNATHAN S.R.
Vaibhav is an unconventional artiste, who has made a reputation for himself in dance-theatre. In his arms, the ever present margam turns into a theatrical expertise. It’s a crew effort with specialists — Sushant Jadhav (lighting) filling the stage at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha with an uncommon white wash, utilizing color selectively; Mahesh Swamy (flute), Kaleeshwara Pillai (nattuvangam) and Satish Krishnamurthy (mridangam, kanjira) build up momentum when there isn’t any whereas Srikanth Gopalakrishnan (vocal) and Vishwesh Swaminathan (violin) providing wonderful melody.
Purists could balk, however one has to present room for change for the sake of continuity of the classical custom. At his recital, Vaibhav’s margam had new items and new views for the outdated. His theme was ‘Akasha’. The 2 opening items emphasised this — an uncommon alarippu within the historic 24-akshara Udghatta tala (marga tala revived by percussionist-scholar Guru Bharadwaj) and Dikshitar’s Kedaragowla kriti, ‘Anandanatana prakasam’, each on the Akasha Linga (cosmic dancer).
Vaibhav Arekar performing a margam, ‘Akasha’ at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha’s Margazhi competition, in December 2022.
| Picture Credit score:
RAGHUNATHAN S.R.
The alarippu in Udghatta was a mix of 4s and 5s with 3s, peppered with the sollu ‘Udghatta’ and Shiva-mudras. It ended with an arms-up flourish ‘Udghatta tham.’ That is Vaibhav’s model. He appears for methods to boost the general impact of his dance — within the kriti he used the evocative kanjira for Shiva tandava, and he contrasted busy nritta with a shock silence in the long run.
Vaibhav Arekar performing a margam ‘Akasha’ at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha’s Margazhi competition, in December 2022.
| Picture Credit score:
RAGHUNATHAN S.R.
His visualisation of the varnam with a message of affection from the sakhi to the nayaka, Srinivasa, ‘Daani kori’ (Vasantha, Mishra Jhampa, Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar), was a research in dramatics. The pallavi was sung like a virutham to point out us what the sakhi sees, as a prelude. The sancharis detailed the nayika’s state of hopelessness, her absorption in ideas of Srinivasa. There have been three characters within the piece, however Vaibhav’s role-play was all the time clear. Whereas the sakhi took centre stage, he didn’t converse of the nayaka as a godhead however caught to the lyrics describing the attributes and the plight of the nayika. It was padartha abhinaya dramatised as angika abhinaya, busy and generally lokadharmic; it could preserve the viewers engaged, however is with out depth.
A Marimutha Pillai ninda stuti (‘Edukkittanai modi’, Surutti and a Purvi thillana (Rupakam, T. Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar) adopted the place he carried out an entire phase of diagonal actions. Generally he doesn’t transfer, and leaves it to the orchestra. What sees Vaibhav by means of is his sophistication and stage presence.