Dancers brought Chandralekha’s creative spirit alive with inspired performances at the 19th Memorial Festival

The taxable of the 19th Chandralekha Memorial was ‘Dancers from Kerala.’ The performances included Kuchipudi Yakshagana, Mohiniyattam, Bharatanatyam and Koodiyattam.

Pasumarthi Rattiah Sarma and Kavya Harish presented Kuchipudi Yakshagana. Guru Rattiah Sarma, 85, was calved into the contented and remains 1 of the past bastions of the archetypal creation theatre-art. The pieces were from the aged repertoire and included kalapams, sabdams, daruvus (padams) and thillanas, the main attraction being the old-style Kuchipudi. Kavya, the disciple of gurus Sarma and Sreelakshmy Govardhan, has imbibed the rustic tone of the benignant arsenic good arsenic the buoyancy of the steps. Her timing, acting and vocals were excellent.

The brisk gait and quick-changing nadais were maintained each done the sabdam. The ‘Hiranyakashipu Pravesha daruvu followed, and featured beardown stamping and striking posturing. There were 2 daruvus from Siddhandra Yogi’s ‘Bhama Kalapam’— with Sathyabhama successful viraha, suffering Cupid’s angiosperm arrows arsenic others ridicule her, and dictating a missive for Madhavi to beryllium sent to Krishna erstwhile the clip was right.

Guru Sarma anchored the programme with beardown nattuvangam. He made 2 appearances with the cymbals astir his neck, continuing the nattuvangam. You could spot his comfortableness with the signifier and his agility, particularly successful the ‘Lekha’ episode, wherever helium sat connected the level with Sathyabhama to constitute the letter. When Madhavi is tasked with checking the signs, Guru Sarma replied wittily, ‘The clip is close for the letter, but not for Kuchipudi Yakshgana successful Chennai!’

The adept orchestra of the soul-stirring programme featured Murali Sangeeth (vocals), Kalamandalam Sreerang (mridangam) and Hariprasad Subramaniam (flute).

Vinita Nedungadi, a elder disciple of Kerala Kalamandalam Kshemavathy, has introduced a caller facet into the graceful vilamba kala movements of Mohiniyattam. A slower gait gives clip to delve deeper into the movement, and the euphony is much drawn out, emphasising melody alternatively than rhythm. There was immoderate bully Sopana and Carnatic euphony arsenic good — Sundar Das (vocals) and Suresh Ambadi (violin).

The mukhachalam successful ragamalika, Panchari talam, composed by Kavalam Narayana Panicker, was a lasya nritta piece, and offered the joyousness of experiencing gentle euphony and movement. The slow, afloat arcs and the heavy torso bends ending successful a dilatory dhi dhi thai were poetic.

‘Parthasarathy Varnanan’ composed by Kottakal Madhu from the past Kili Paattu brought retired the dancer’s mature abhinaya.

The varnam successful Sahana, Adi, composed by Kottakal Madhu from the Malayalam translation of Tagore’s Gitanjali, presented a nayika awaiting her love. For the astir part, she is successful viraha until she yet realises that everything successful Nature reminds her of him, and frankincense she feels his presence.

The mridangist (Kallekulangara Unnikrishnan) was unobtrusive yet responsive. So was the narrator and nattuvangam artiste Anjitha Nambisan. Vinita finished her recital with a portion connected Ardhanareeshwara.

Bharatanatyam dancer Rajashree Warrier seems to travel her ain chiseled approach. There was a predominance of abhinaya successful her presumption of excerpts from Andal’s Vaaranam Aayiram followed by the violin maestro Lalgudi Jayaraman’s Charukesi varnam, ‘Innum en manam’ successful Adi tala.

With a penchant for the tripathaka mudra, Rajashree’s nritta is each astir consecutive lines. She is softly mature and ne'er steps retired of quality successful the abhinaya.

Following the varnam, she presented 2 compositions from Advaita philosopher and saint Sadasiva Brahmendral — ‘Manasa sancharare’ (Sama, Adi) and ‘Pibare rama rasam’. She made them mini-solo creation dramas by inserting Kuchela’s communicative from the constituent of presumption of his long-suffering woman successful the archetypal and Ahalya’s successful the latter. Both displayed sensitivity and finesse.

Her orchestra was superb — Uduppi S. Srinath (vocals), RLV Hemanth Lakshman (nattuvangam), Kalamandalam Sreerang (mridangam) and Hariprasad Subramaniam (flute). The low-key nattuvangam successful the non-nritta parts helped the euphony stay enjoyable.

Usha Nangiar’s ‘Ahalya’ brought the curtains down connected this memorial for Chandralekha. Usha is simply a well-known Koodiyattam artiste — she has the favoritism of being trained nether the legendary Ammanur Madhava Chakyar and performing on with him. Her probe into aged attaprakarams brought to airy pistillate characterisations that had been mislaid implicit time. Usha is 1 of the champion traditionalists and is an innovator too.

The almost-two hr ‘Ahalya’, taken from the Adhyatma Ramayana, was a painstaking relationship of Ahalya’s beingness aft her matrimony to Sage Gautama.

Usha’s nuanced acting prowess and facial expressions shone successful the performance. Her quiescent pathos arsenic the condemned Ahalya brought tears to the eyes.

The percussive enactment — Kalamandalam Rajeev and Kalamandalam Vijay connected the mizhavu, Kalanilayam Unnikrishnan connected the edakka and Athira connected the thalam — heightened the appeal.