Sensitive links with dance

FOR VIDYA Bhavani Suresh, Bharathanatyam is not confined to performing the same old compositions time and time again. Realising the need to be contemporary, without being iconoclastic, and to be sensitive to modern women, she had branched off to create a meaningful repertoire of dance compositions, not just for her to perform, but for posterity.

It has been a mammoth task. The idea has not been to shun traditional compositions, but to create an additional repertoire that is rich in Tamil literature.

The compositions are now available to dance enthusiasts, teachers, students and performers as a nine part cassette and CD series. ``It is phase II of my ideology,'' says Ms. Suresh. In the first phase, Ms. Suresh had argued against the repetitive compositions used by Bharathanatyam dances. In the second phase she provides them with the answer. ``Now the dancers cannot complain. There is an alternative''.

The recordings leave the option of choreography to the dancers. Not to curtail the imagination of the dancer, she has consciously avoided ``nattuvangam''. ``It is open to them''. She even ensured that nobody was dancing while she was singing for the recording. She has also avoided ``varnam'' because it too has become quite repetitive in performances.

The six-and-half-hour recording has Thirukkural, Thirumurugatruppadai, Paripadal, Nalavenba, Meenakshi Amman Pillai Tamizh and Thiruppugazh.

The concept of the series, brought out by Skanda Trust, is ``The word - the visual''. According to Ms. Suresh, all the experts have been turned to suit the visual. The choice of the raga and tala/gathi are also done with the visual in mind because ``dance music is not carnatic music, it is an interpretation of carnatic music to suit a specific purpose''. Same time, it seeks to popularise Tamil literature.

So, it will not sound like a ``kutcheri,'' but will give one the feeling of watching a Bharathanatyam recital, says Ms. Suresh.

The response to her ten year long project has been encouraging. ``It is an effort to create a new genre of dance music,'' she summarises.

By G. Pramod Kumar

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Section  : Entertainment