Section Synopsis (DECEMBER 2007)

NEWS & NOTES

Upanyasa does not Harikatha make -N. VAIDYANATHAN

Tell it pretty
Tell it plain,
Tell me a story
Rich and strange
It is all very well to ask. But wishing will not take you far. There is a price to be paid. As I approach the Place of Good Things, the drawbridge is already pulled up. Men with mighty swords order my driver to park the car outside. But I claw my way up the ramparts and sneak past to the doors of the Hall of Great Audience. I sing Varugalaamo (Manji). The dwarapalaka-s remain unmoved. Someone then whispers to them that I am a scribbler of sorts and I am grudgingly allowed to enter and slink into a seat.

But wait. There is more to come. The characters onstage are involved in prolonged rituals of ponnadai-flinging, memento-passing, feet-touching, etc. Eventually, in a silence weighed down by expectancy, Visakha Hari walks on to the stage and sits down, upanyasaka-fashion. The performance begins.

Billed as a musical discourse, it has more music than discourse. The songs are sung in full, complete with niraval. The story is hurried through in a “bare bones” style. In the process, both song and story suffer.

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* The E. Krishna Iyer medal of honour, awarded once in two years to a senior dancer or dance institution, was presented this year to Mrinalini Sarabhai.

* The Vellore Gopalachariar Award instituted by Vellore Ramabhadran in memory of his father, was given to Bombay S. Ramachandran.

* The M. Venkatakrishnan Memorial Award instituted by Ramaa Bharadvaj was awarded to ‘Kartik’ R. Rajagopal.

The Sruti Foundation organised a function on 4th November 2007 at the Dakshinamurthy Auditorium, Mylapore, to present the awards and honour the awardees.

The function began on an auspicious note with a melodious invocation by Nisha Rajagopal. Apart from the three awards presented that evening, there was one reason to celebrate — Sruti magazine was entering its 25th year of publication.

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A first hand insight into the creative process is a rare delight. When it is informal with a sense of humour to pep things up, it is even more so. The workshop conducted by Anil Srinivasan and Sikkil Gurucharan at the Alliance Francaise on October 13th discussed structural and emotive aspects of music, psychology and playing hopscotch among other things. How does one adapt a piano, an instrument which produces discrete notes, to Carnatic music which thrives on the flow of gamaka was the question Anil Srinivasan set out with. The format which developed was Anil playing the piano and Sikkil Gurucharan singing carefully chosen songs.

What is special about this format?  When words fail, we resort to neologisms. David Raphael Israel, a poet based in Washington DC who among other things is a practitioner of English ghazal-s and a student of Hindustani music, coined a term for poetry by prescription — ‘Xeric poetry’. Xeric describes something that can thrive on very little water, like flora in the desert. The prescription does not constrain but just directs the flow; and there is very little direction. Discerningly struck notes of the piano set the ambience. They provide a framework within which a lone voice despairs, laments and longs for all that is unattainable. The piano thus directs but does not constrain.

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COVER STORY

Sensitive, sensuous
Shobana — the filmstar-dancer -S.JANAKI


The Nritya Choodamani title was conferred on dancer Shobana on 5th December 2007 on the inaugural day of Sri Krishna Gana Sabha’s 52nd Art and Dance Festival in Chennai.

There’s never a dull moment when Shobana is on stage. A powerful dancer, she is blessed with the requisite attributes of a ‘nartaki’ — an expressive face, stunning looks, remarkable stage presence, intelligence, creativity and a passion for the art. Her ‘manaseeka guru’, famous Bharatanrityam exponent Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam, who has known her as a child, affectionately declares that Shobana is a ‘complete artist’ — accomplished actor and dancer, well versed in music and aspects of laya.

Born on the day of the spring equinox on 21st March 1996 in Kerala, Shobana Chandrakumar is at the age of 41, an achiever in two fields — dance and cinema. A winner of the best actress award many times for her varied roles in films, with two national awards for Manichitra Thazhu and Mitr, My Friend, Padma Shri from the Government of India, Shobana has now added to her kitty the coveted Nritya Choodamani award for dance.

Born into a family of dancers, Shobana is the niece of the legendary Travancore Sisters Lalitha, Padmini and Ragini, who made it big in films, and on stage as well, with their popular dance-dramas. It is but natural that Shobana followed in their footsteps and started learning Bharatanatyam at a very early age.

She learnt her first dancing steps and adavu lessons to the rhythmic beats of guru K.J. Sarasa’s tattukazhi. Later, after five years of intensive training at the Chidambaram Academy for Performing Arts, under the guidance of Bharatanatyam exponent Chitra Visweswaran, Shobana made her formal debut in Chennai in 1984. “She was a very intelligent, hard working and gifted student,” says Chitra.

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Aurauraa ! bagaaya maremi ala
Sarojaakshi valalo dhagili
Naa nenaru marachitivi...

The refrain of the immortal Huseni swarajati trails off. The dancer recedes into the wings after the blazing tour de force that lasted nearly an hour. The entire audience rises on its feet as one man and breaks into a thunderous ovation that goes on and on, with most hands raised overhead.

Artists, rasika-s and disciples mob the sixty-six year old dancer who performed like a sixteen year old. As she rides the swell of admiration and wonder she looks fit enough to go back on stage to do the varnam all over again. “I love to dance,” she says when asked how she feels on this occasion which marks the silver jubilee of her dance school ‘Pushpanjali’. Her disciples, a number of whom have come from the United States to participate in the function, crowd around their guru.

The dancing started way back when she was barely six years old. Elder sister Kamala, older by eight years, was already a dancing star on stage and silver screen. Rhadha made her debut in the film Vethala Ulakam, in the Pavalakkodi sequence. She appeared as a toddler dragging the coral chariot. She remembers dancing as a beggar girl in the film Penn. Soon she started doing some light numbers such as the fisherman’s dance and the hunter’s dance in Bharatanatyam performances when Kamala went in for a change of costume.

By this time the family had moved to a house on Appu Mudali Street, Mylapore, Madras. The joint family consisted of the couple Rajam and Ramamurthy with their daughters Kamala, Rhadha and Vasanthi and Rajam’s brothers Rajamani and Pattu and their mother.

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This article is part of an annual series which looks back on music seasons of the past.

Back in 1932, the December music season meant the concerts of the Music Academy. The Indian Fine Arts Society had been formed but it did not conduct programmes in December. The Academy still functioned from the residence of its founding President, Dr. U. Rama Rau at 323 Thambu Chetty Street. Concerts had been held right through the year at Gana Mandir, the music hall that Dr. Rama Rau had constructed on Thambu Chetty Street specially for the Music Academy. It also housed its Teachers College of Music there (see box for details of concerts). The year had witnessed ‘Tiger’ Varadachariar’s departure from the Teachers College to take over the position of Chief Lecturer at the Madras University’s Music Department. He was succeeded by Harikesanallur L. Muthiah Bhagavatar. The Academy had celebrated Krishna Jayanti on 25th August with a lecdem on “Jayadeva’s Ashtapadis, the Tarangas of Teertha Narayana and Padams of Kshetriyar” by P. Sambamoorthy. On 27th August, the first Model School for Music had been inaugurated at the National Girls’ School (now the Lady Sivaswami Iyer Girls’ School) in Mylapore by Miss C.N. Nallamuthu of Queen Mary’s College (she was the sister of Dr. Muthulakshmi Reddy). On 29th August, a second school had been inaugurated in Mambalam by Mrs. Andal Venkatasubba Rao and on 31st August, a third school was inaugurated at the CST Hall, Mint Street, by Rukmini Lakshmi­pathy. A music competition for girls was conducted on 17th September and gold medals sponsored by Mrs. Alamelu Jayarama Iyer were given away to the first and second prize winners. The Music Academy celebrated Syama Sastry Day on 14th November, with a talk on the composer by his grandson, also a Syama Sastry. The first batch from the Teachers College passed out on 30th November and received diplomas.

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Keezhpadam Kumaran Nair, born on May 30, 1915, a great exponent of Kathakali, died on July 26th 2007 at the age of 92. He had been one of the two oldest disciples of Pattikamtodi Ravunni Menon.

Known for his highly creative expositions, Kumaran Nair was hailed in equal measure for his technical perfection as well as for his manodharma. For a learned audience familiar with the Hindu epics and the intricacies of the art, his performance was a feast for the mind and intellect. He was a trailblazing traditionalist, a perfectionist to the core and a bard of high vision on stage.





Palakkad Suresh

Palakkad S. Suresh, 46 year-old mridanga vidwan, passed away on 17th August 2007 after a brief illness.  He was a science graduate. Grand-nephew and disciple of the mridanga maestro Palghat Mani Iyer and of T.R. Rajamani, Suresh faithfully followed his guru’s bani. He was an A-grade artist of AIR and Doordarshan.

Suresh accompanied veteran musicians like D.K. Pattammal, D.K. Jayaraman, Dr. S. Ramanathan, K.V. Narayanaswamy, Nedunuri Krishnamurthy, B. Rajam Iyer, T.V. Sankaranarayanan, T.N. Seshagopalan, Chittibabu, M.S. Gopalakrishnan and T.N. Krishnan and also played the mridanga in a jugalbandi concert featuring Hindustani flute maestro Hariprasad Chaurasia.

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