Vivid and vivacious

SHOBHANA ALTERNATED between Natyadharmi and Lokadharmi modes of presentation in her Bharathanatyam performance at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha. Beginning with a ``Pushpanjali'' composed by Ganesh and Kumaresh, Shobhana impressed with her bright stage presence and unusual colour and material for the costume which suited her well. She had worn two sets of bells on each ankle giving an effect of a Kathak dancer. Taking advantage of her tall frame, Shobhana danced with sweetness but seemed to be forever making up her mind about where she stood, in the stylised dance arena or realistic acting arena.

This was most evident in her padam ``Varugalamo'' of Gopalakrishna Bharathi. She crouched on the floor in a very realistic manner and then brought in Natyadharmi in the Paramananda tandava line where she showed the Tandava of Siva only through imagination and the closed eye-ecstasy of Nandanar. The scene where Nandanar finally settles down and innocently watching people moving around him was touching.

Earlier, Shobhana performed the Varnam in Shanmugapriya composed by Lalgudi Jayaraman. Though she had problems with the aridi completion of the theermanam sequences, there were beautiful adavu sequences to show that she really can do the adavus very well. The small jumps and the Nritta sequences came out brilliantly in places. There were moments of strong arm movements, good posture suddenly slackening to a lifting of the shoulder and bringing the elbows close to the body creating some imbalance. But the joy of her dance is undeniable and reached out to the audience.

Most impressive was the sequence of the Trivikrama and the Vamana avatara where Vamana was shown coming in little strides and with humour and then the seriousness of his seeking three small steps worth of land and each step growing and occupying the entire earth and the sky was shown with great imagination and sincerity. The Narasimha episode also was impressive.

The Tilanna was in Khamas and done with clean execution of adavus which had some interesting patterns. Musicians Suma Mani for nattuvangam, Radha Badri for vocal, Nellai D. Kannan for mridangam, Rajesh Vaidya for veena. Muruganandam for violin and Shankaranarayanan for flute did their job well. Radha Badri was particularly impressive in the raga alapana of Shanmugapriya.

V. R. DEVIKA

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