Parvathi Menon and Shijith Nambiar impressed with their visualisation

Parvathi Menon and Shijith Nambiar’s performance ticked many of the right boxes, but a little brevity might have helped

The high point of the performance by Parvati Menon and Shijith Nambiar for the Music Academy Dance festival was the Ashtapadi performed by Parvathi, which deals with the intimacy between Radha and Krishna, visualised with great candour in the Verse ‘Sakhi he keshi madhanmudaram’ by Jayadeva in  Gita Govindam. Addressing her sakhi to go and fetch Krishna, Radha reminisces about her romantic moments with him. Beginning with the depiction of a bashful Radha entering the Bower (a woman’s private apartment), Parvati’s delineation of the Ashtapadi unravelled the various shades of love and physical intimacy with finesse. The first flush of love when Krishna’s hand touches her, the tingling reaction when the peacock feather caresses her body, the music of the cuckoos adding fervour to their dalliance on a bed of leaves and flowers, and the anklet bells disturbing them — these sancharis filled with poetic expressions lingered for long. The lilting melody of raga Yamuna Kalyani suited the mood of the composition (Musical score: Edapalli Ajith Kumar).

Shijith Nambiar then followed it up with Kavi Kunjara Bharathi’s ‘Swami mayuragiri vadivela’ in raga Khamas, which explored the ideas expressed in the composition through the eyes of a peacock. The grace of the neck movements, the gait and the fluttering of the feathers were beautiful, but overdoing the movements repeatedly made it look caricaturish.

Prior to these two Abhinaya-oriented compositions, The dancers began their performance with Arunagirinathar’s Thiruppugazh ‘Muthaitharu pathitirunagai’ and an alarippu, and took up Papanasam Sivan’s Nattakurinji varnam ‘Swami naan undhan adimai’ for an elaborate exploration. Moving away from the standard presentation of a varnam, the dancers explored the play of spotlights to focus on the individual expressions. The adavu patterns exploring the spatial dimensions of the stage were choreographed aesthetically.

The descriptions of the udukkai, snake, tiger skin and other details of the physicality of the form of Shiva, the subtle erotic intimacy of Shiva and Shakti, and the reverberance and power of the sound of Om were interwoven in the narration of a song expressing the yearning of a devotee seeking the grace of the lord.

These moments were interspersed with sequences of jathi korvais in varied kala pramanams and interesting formations. But then, they stretched it too long with each of them doing a solo nritta before dancing it as a duo. This also disturbed the mood of intense devotion that the composition warranted.

Binu V. Gopal’s melodic vocal support enhanced the visual experience. Nattuvangam was by Uday Shankar Lal Shivaprasad (mridangam), Vijesh Gopalkrishnan (kanjira), Eshwar Ramakrishnan (violin) and Sruti Sagar (glute) provided strong support. The lighting design was by Victor Paulraj.