A Look at the Chennai Dance Season — Bharatanatyam Performances Reviewed

By V.V. Ramani

Year after year, the excitement and frenetic activity in the performing arts arena, with a mind-boggling number of performances across every part of Chennai, slowly wanes as the month of Margazhi comes to an end. This year, the cultural calendar was overflowing.

Taking baby steps with the big players, Rasoham, headed by Laasya Narasimhachari, has begun to garner support for their annual ‘Kutty Kutchery’ festival. In their third year, this festival held across varied spaces, featuring a wide range of art forms, brings the audience to respond to the art in intimate spaces.

In this edition of the ten-day festival, the musical evening by Anil Srinivasan, Sikkil Gurucharan and Madhan Karky was an engaging musical interaction at Narthaki Studios where the three of them shared their experiences and the process with which they ideate and present songs. The most interesting piece was an almost impromptu one, where Madhan penned the lyrics in the morning, and Anil and Gurucharan translated that into a musical rendition by evening. The camaraderie between the artists, the intimacy of their interface with the listeners, made this an enriching experience. In a scenario where artists often perform to almost empty halls, Kutty Kutchery is probably an answer to take arts to smaller spaces and engage with a new set of interested listeners. 

(The author is a freelance critic and an artist by profession)