Committed to the art

THE ANNUAL Spirit of Youth Series of the Music Academy was sponsored by Sundaram Fasteners in memory of Ambujam Krishna. There was a fair mixture of enthusiasm, skill and involvement seen in most of the performances of the young aspirants who danced at this ten-day festival.

Among the artistes featured on the first few days of the festival, Bala Ramachandran and Bhargavi Parameswaran from Hyderabad, gave ample proof of their hard work in aspects of nritta, especially in the varnam (``Sakhiye'') composition, conducted with confidence by their teacher Rajeswari Sainath. Ramesh Babu (mridangam) and Murali (vocal) gave good support. On the inaugural day, Anuradha Venkataraman, disciple of Saroja Vaidyanathan from New Delhi, was featured.

The recital of Bhargavi Gopalan, disciple of K. J. Sarasa, revealed considerable talent in aspects of pure dance. With her graceful physique and expressive face, Bhargavi could have attempted deeper intricacies of abhinaya. Her facial expressions were too soft to emphasise aptly the right mood of the lyrics with, the necessary involvement. The tillana of Poochi Iyengar was a fitting finale to Bhargavi's pleasant recital. K. J. Sarasa, assisted ably by Rajalakshmi conducted the recital with dignity.

The highlight of Charulatha Jayaraman's (from Tiruchi) performance, was the gripping nattuvangam by her teacher Subhashini Chandrasekhar, with solid mridangam accompaniment by Chandrasekhar. Charulatha has a very pleasant stage presence. Although she revealed a certain elegance in her approach, she did not fully achieve the standard of perfection, especially in nritta-oriented passages, throughout the recital and hence there was a lack of precision. Also, the young dancer seemed tired. At the commencement, the recital had an interesting invocatory Panchamurti stuti, a composition of Thanjai Arunachalam Pillai. Similarly, ``Kanaka Sabhai'' (Gopalakrishna Bharati) brought forth a joyous spirit in the depictions of the Lord of Dance. Venugopal (vocal), Sikkil Balu (violin) ad P. V. Ramana (flute) formed a supportive orchestra.

One was reminded of the exponent Kamala of yesteryear when Keerthi Ramgopal from Bangalore, a bright disciple of Padmini Ramachandran, revealed enormous energy and spirit in her recital. She was in complete control of the technical portions. Her leaps and swift exercises came out with so much ease and grace and a note of joy pervaded through her performance. Except the sabdam, Keerthi followed a full order of the traditional format. While she was confident in the technical aspects, her involvement in abhinaya seemed somewhat diluted due to a flashy smile which interrupted from to time, shifting the focus from the central mood of the lyric. Padmini (Priyadarsini) Ramachandran conducted the recital well and she had the fine support of Janardhan Rao (mridangam) and flautist H. K. Narasimhamurthi.

Nalini Raghu from Mumbai presented one of her skilful disciples, Medini Ghodgaonkar, at the festival; the performance was based mostly on compositions of Nalini herself, revealing the multifaceted accomplishments of the teacher. The compositions chosen were lyrically beautiful, rich, with suitable content of ``bhakti'' as the predominant mood. Nalini had also set the tunes and choreographed the teermanams apart from the other nritta and abhinaya sections. Equally talented was the disciple Medini who extended a touch of grace and beauty to the presentation with her matured artistry. Medini also chose to follow a full order of the traditional performance. After the invocatory number on Lord Ganesa, alarippu (chatusram) and a gripping khanda nadai jatiswaram came forth. A lively sabdam in Tamil on Lord Siva, on the glory of the all-pervasive deity was presented well. Nalini led the recital with her fine and unassuming nattuvangam.

She was ably supported by Sarayu Srinivasan who sang melodiously, accompanied by Adyar Balu (mridangam), adding more strength to this enjoyable performance.

There was a vibrancy and brilliance in the performance of Mythili Prakash, daughter and disciple of Viji Prakash both of whom had come all the way from Los Angeles, U.S.A., to participate in the festival. Mythili is a confident dancer who seems to have put in enormous hard work to make her presentation lively and skilful. The orchestra consisting of Babu Parameswaran (vocal), Veda Krishnan (mridangam) Kalai Arasan (Violin) and Mahesh Swamy (flute), led by Viji Prakash (nattuvangam) was very well coordinated and strong. Viji conducted with dedication.

The fascinating Useni swarajati formed the central part of Mythili's performance. Mythili has graceful, and perfectly symmetrical hand movements. She was calm and composed throughout this marathon piece which she rendered effortlessly.

A calm, serene atmosphere was created as the performance of Ramyalekha, disciple of Usha Srinivasan commenced. Neat footwork, reasonably good skill in abhinaya, and a leisurely approach were to be seen in this young dancer. Ramyalekha's presentation of the mainstay of the recital, varnam ``Mohamaginen'' (K. N. Dandayudhapani Pillai) was impressive. The dancer had good control over both nritta as well as abhinaya and is endowed with a pleasant, expressive face to bring forth the details of the different aspects of dance.

The festival had two more bright artistes, who are well known male dancers; B. R. Rajesh Kumar, disciple of Shantha and V. P. Dhananjayan and P. R. Rajesh, a student from Kalakshetra. Both gave striking performances and expressed their sincere efforts through their devoted offerings.

NANDINI RAMANI

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