Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Spellbinding seven of a legend

— Photo: K.Pichumani

Connoisseur’s delight: Playwright Crazy Mohan presenting a portrait of Padma Subrahmanyam that he painted to the dancer at a function in Chennai on Thursday.

CHENNAI: Seven thematic productions of legendary dancer Padma Subrahmanyam have made their way into DVDs in ‘Nritya Saptaham,’ launched by Swathi Soft Solutions in Chennai on Thursday.

The set of DVDs are recordings of live performances of the artiste on the themes ‘Krishnaya Tubhyam Namaha,’ ‘Ramaya Tubhyam Namaha,’ ‘Bhagavad Gita,’ ‘Jaya Jaya Sankara,’ ‘Meenakshi Kalyanam,’ ‘Paripadal mudhal Bharathi varai,’ and ‘Sangamam.’

K.S. Sudhakar, partner, Swathi Soft Solutions, said that the company was commemorating its 10th anniversary with the launch of the DVDs.

The DVDs, which offer a choice of commentary in five languages - English, Tamil, Malayalam, Telugu and Kannada, also feature relevant anecdotes of the dancer and interesting musings.

Speaking at the event, Bharatanatyam exponent Krishnakumari Narendran said Ms. Subrahmanyam’s productions rendered the audience spell-bound. “Her nuances and eye for detail are nonpareil... In ‘Meenakshi Kalyanam,’ the way she depicts Meenakshi as a brave, powerful woman first and as the coy lady later is phenomenal. Meenakshi’s charriot is so full of life...you can almost see the horses on stage...,” she said.

Noted columnist S. Gurumurthy said that it was only after watching Ms. Subrahmanyam’s performances that he realised how an artiste could really elevate an art form.

Renowned orator Suki Sivam said unlike a film actor, a dancer had to portray several characters with the same costume, make up and stage settings.

“Padma Subrahmanyam does this with remarkable ease. To her, dance is not just for performance. It is an experience and when art becomes an experience, one sees divinity in it,” he added.

Upanyasam exponent Srivatsa Jayarama Sarma said it was no easy talk to perform on Adi Sankara, but Ms. Subrahmanyam, who was initially reluctant, put in a lot of research and thought to bring out a beautiful production.

Playwright Crazy Mohan, who presented a portrait of her painted by him to the Ms.Subrahmanyam, said ‘Krishnaya Tubhyam Namaha’ made the audience aware of and experience the different facets of Lord Krishna.

N. Murali, managing director, The Hindu, said Ms.Subrahmanyam’s artistic journey was a fine blend of creativity and research.

She looked into the very source, which was the fountainhead of all streams of dance, thereby giving an answer to critics that her dance is more ancient than Bharathanatyam or Sadir, he noted.

‘Cleveland’ V.V. Sundaram, industrialist L.Sabaretnam, secretary of Narada Gana Sabha R. Krishnaswamy were among the other speakers who offered their felicitations to the dancer.

Mrs. Y.G. Parthasarathy, dean and director of Padma Seshadri group of schools and chairperson, Bharat Kalachar, launched www.padmadance.com, a website on the ace dancer. Three audio CDs on her productions were also launched on the occasion.

A part of the sale proceeds of the DVDs would go to the Bharatamuni Foundation, the organisers said.

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