Day One Bharata Naatyam

Finally, this day which was a milestone both in the Sabha's history and my own life, arrived. I was very pleased to see the fresh generation of students from my alma mater, Kalakshetra. Leela Samson spoke about how Athai's ideals were the driving force behind her teaching of the arts at Kalakshetra.

All my memories came flooding back when I saw the Shyla prastheshu scene being performed. When the natakam was first performed, I was one of the kinnara-s and I had to dance along with my teacher Sarada! It was a very fast paced sequence, very hard to perform but over in a flash! It reminded me of how Athai cast various dancers based on their natural suitability for a role.

I liked the presentation of how Kalakshetra has grown and expanded in so many ways. New themes are taken up for choreography, music by famous vidwans such as Lalgudi Jayaraman provide an unusual medley of three ragams, more research is being done on various aspects related to dance and the institution is flourishing with so many young dancers! The small excerpts presented from the dance-dramas really showed how much learning there is when one is dancing in a group. That experience alone is priceless and is a brilliant part of the Kalakshetra training.

I only wish that there had been a little more time given to tracing step by step what is now known as the Kalakshetra style. Leela Samson did talk about the Pandanallur Bani being the foundation for the Kalakshetra style, and the fact that many of the items in the core teaching repertoire are all old gems from Pandanallur, but I would have liked to have seen how the adavus were done then at the time Rukmini Devi began learning from   Meenakshisundaram Pillai and how Rukmini Devi worked on them to define and streamline the movements.

One example did come through in the Q&A session and one would have wished for more such examples: How Athai took the very basic tattadavu with one beat and built it up to eight beats with variations. But the basic araimandi itself became emphasised only in Kalakshetra and it would have been interesting, I think, to have had a demonstration of what certain positions used to be like and what they became when Athai worked on them. As C.V. Chandrasekhar said, 'Athai brought precision to every movement. There was no vagueness. Feet, hands, eyes, they all had a particular position in the course of an adavu.'

But all in all, it was a very enjoyable lecture demonstration. I hope more of you will attend tomorrow's session!

                                       Abhyaasa Sampradaaya- The teacher and the students

Shantha