Kalidas Festival 2006

Fine display of art at Kalidas fest

 

Jan. 16th, 2006 by Shabnam Bhowmick

Poets, be it Atul Prasad of the East or Wordsworth of the West, have described God as the Nayak of the Nayika, ‘Soul’. Nayika gets restless as her unseen lover calls her through His flute. The soul’s journey would end only at the moment of total surrender, when the soul unites with the Lord and becomes one. The Lord, for sadhakas of art, is the sam. On Sunday, at the Vasantrao Deshpande hall, this exertion to reach the crescendo, the Sam, the Lord, was the theme that united all three performances. Kathak dancers Sushmita Banerjee and Prachee Shah, representing two time zones of the art form, made the audience fall in love with Kathak. Rasika Khanna’s Bharatnatyam was magnificent.

 

Sushmita Banerjee, who has entrusted herself a mission to popularise the art form through the length and breadth of the globe, mostly performed compositions of her Guru Pandit Ram Narayan Mishra in the beginning. The presentation on teen taal of danseuse of Lucknow gharana was her journey to attain Moksha. She displayed unmatchable tayyari and intricate footwork in combined laya pattern during the ladi. Austerity in Sushmita’s costume was no indication to austerity in her performance-- it simply told the audience about her simplicity and her greatness as an artist. Her dress was designed so as to put some restrictions while she performed chakkardar. That could be a sign of how much she wanted to be inside the framework of grammar of Kathak. Her love for the art and respect for its grammar only nurtured the artist in herself and she was able to present a never-fading experience to the Nagpur people. Sushmita’s artistic genius unleashed itself in presentation of Kalidas’ Kumarsambhavam-- am attempt few kathak dancers would make due to unavailability of descriptive mudras in the dance form. It took a Sushmita Banerjee to perform an Ekahaari-- where she played all the characters of Kumarsambhavam-- with apt mime. She handled each character deftly with immaculate maturity. Sushmita’s aesthetic sense was exemplary in portraying the consummation of marriage of Lord Shiva and Parvati and also in describing the beauty of adolescent Parvati. Sushmita was ably assisted in vocal by Subhashish Bhattacharya, on tabla by Sanjay Kumar Mukherjee, and on sitar by Sandeep Niogi. Prachi Shah, the young talented dancer of Jaipur school recharged the audience through her powerful presentation of Kathak. She perfectly balanced her expressions and rhythmical variations and her Tehais and Parans had a spontaneous spirit. She illustrated Kathak through chakkardar, thaat, and tukre. While she performed short kavit and thumris, her expressions changed with every word. No word, no gat, no taal were less important to her. With exceptional nazaakat and khoobsurati, she gave every ephemeral word a eternal identity. Prachi was assisted by her Guru, Ganesh Hiralalji, and Shravani Choudhuri on vocal, Umesh Ganesh on tabla and also by Bhupal Phansikar and Anwar Hussain. Rasika Khanna presented Bharatnatyam recitation during the second session of the Kalidas Festival.

 In the presentation of this disciple of Adyar K Lakshmanan, one could feel a smooth flow of dance communication, especially in abhinaya. She started with Ganesh Vandana and Shiv Shuti. Constraint of time held her back from displaying much of pure nritta, but she easily made up for that with her prowess over abhinaya. Depiction of Lord Krishna during his different leelas was an impressive interpretation by Rasika with a gentle, unhurried approach, replete with emotion. Usha Shrinivasan (vocal), Balasubhramanium (violin) and Venkatesh (mridangam) gave a good support to Rasika.