Nibandhana

One of the most exciting, fulfilling and memorable performances i got to see this Decemeber season was Nibandhana by Vaibhav Arekar and Sankhya. It stood out for it's vivid demonstartion of possiblities of lighting n group dynamics in a dance performance. 

One sees a pressing and a constant quest among dancers of BN as to how to create something new or different into their repertoire. Few manage to do this by dancing to pieces of poetry chosen from different languages etc. But Sankhya dance company showed how u can bring so much difference to a traditional varnam ( the longest and usually the central piece in a BN performance) by thinking differently. 

The 'Mohamaana' is a traditional Varnam danced by almost every other dancer in a given season, for it offers so much scope for exploring and elucidating on the Shringara rasa. Dance performances that don't touch upon Shringara in the varnam or the padam can leave you feeling dry. ( Something that Priyadarshini Govind did in her performance at the Academy. She chose to present only Devi and VAtsalya). How sad and uninspiring would dance look without Shringara.

The execution of Mohamaana varnam by a group was so refereshingly different idea in itself. Only the other day the idea of a multi body presentation of the varnam looked so appealing in a presentation by Rama Vaidyanathan's students at BGS, but it had so many glitches and left one wishing for a better treatments. In a group presentation it can be a disaster to have two nodes executing movements at the same time. The viewer tends to get lost in such scenarios. 

Sankhya's treatment, in contrast, was a brillant exposition of what the group exploration of the Varnam could offer and brought great joy in the way of interesting pacing and captivating formations. Here too the group did form into nodes to execute movements but the movements were in a way of complementing each other and hence augmented the viewing experience. 

The piece 'Priye Charusheele' was a piece in which the vocal dynamics of Karthik Hebbar came to the fore and was mesmerising to say the least. Vaibhav should consider letting a younger dancer perform the Krishna role for the piece to complement the romance in the piece better. When Vaibhav performs romance, it has the aura of a guru performing ingrained in it and doesn't yield itself to the magic that's waiting to be tapped. 

The final thillana saw brilliant moments of magic woven with lighting ( by Sushant Jadav) and choreography, there was an unbelievable moment of brilliance, that i consciously blinked eye to try and grasp the magic without being transported by it.

Vaibhav seems to have mastered the craft of infusing an ingenious spirit and energy into the traditional BN repertoire by playing around with pace, formations, lighting and music. Therein lies a secret waiting to be tapped by young dancers looking to make a difference.

I am very glad that i managed to brave many odds and caught up with this performance at NKC.

NKC 2019

Natya Kala Conference 2019, the annual delibrations and celebrations of dance that Krishna Gana Sabha hosts, and in its 39th edition, will be remembered for the image of its convener Rama Vaidyanathan, that loomed all over every aspect of the proceedings. I can't say if it has ever been so earlier, but from what i have seen in the past two editions, i have known Srinithi, the previous convener keep a low profile while operating from behind the scenes and she was more visible only towards the end of the previous edition, probably because she was signing off. Whatever may be the pros and cons of such an influence, brand NKC, for one, has shot to very high levels of popuarity across India and the world over and sure has set a standard that others would soon vie to adopt and future conveners of NKC are assured of a far n wide reach.

Rama set the ball rolling with deciding to charge the delegates a fee of Rs.500 for attending the 5 day conference. I was an enthusiastic supporter for the initiative, but soon the hassles it gave rise to fizzled out my enthusiasm. i will discuss this a little later in the article.

The Nirikshna theme music and the call for dance videos received entries from across the world and set the buzz of NKC high and loud; it was also quite a revelation in terms of capturing the enthusiasm, the structures and reach of barathanatyam across the globe. The video was also a great initiative in it could have been the first choreo exercise for many students, marking a stage in their evolution as performers. This was quite an exciting phase in the run up to NKC.

It was also quite a revelation that the reach n enthusiasm for videos for Nirikshana theme music also translated into an overwhelming attendance that had flown in from all around the world. One can say for sure that this is the biggest number of footfall that any any dance festival in Chennai could have garnered in the recent times. 

All this enthusiasm and crowd also left many chennaities stranded outside without a place in the auditorium. The frustration even got worse with The legacy lights segment being staged in a even smaller venue, leaving many out unfortunately.

On my part i could only manage to catch the action online on Shaale.com. One had to pay to get access online. Since i was not going to be in town for three days of the festival, i decided it was better to pay for the online access. The videos featured in Shaale were very good, efficiently edited and mastered, giving people who missed the live action, a complete feel of the festival. The organisers could have considered people who pay for attending the conference access to Shaale as well , considering many who had paid could either not turn up or not be there on all five days and were left out of the auditorium given the limited capacity. It was another sad thing that the Shaale access did not cover the wonderful Legacy lights and Torch bearers segments.

The festival opened with the much cherished and celebrated coming together of three legends of the BN world on the stage. IT was a dream opening to the festival with the audience eager to catch every little moment of the legends on the stage. The screening of segments from Viralimalai kuravanji, which brought the three together, staged in 1987 from DD archives was a very special and thrilling moment. Humble respects to the people who had arranged for retrieving and mastering this treasure of an archival material.

The back stories of what went behind bringing the three legends together back in 1987 made for a very interesting recounting by Seetha Ratnakar. It was heartening that Padma Subramanyam did not forget to thank the Devadasis of Viralimalai. 

The festival i think managed to hit it off perfectly well with dancers young and old alike and also in delibrating on topics ranging from the dance histories to adventures. The festival also managed to bring in expertise from across India and the world to share their knowledge.

NKC seems to have transformed itself into a Dance seminar, an event for the dancers to sit back and talk about dance. One question that keeps nudging at me and i wish such forums deliberate up on is,  where is the audience for Dance, where have they vanished, how to bring them back. This is something these festivals should look into and address.