Well-trained students

Music and dance reviews

Well-trained students

Five young dancers acquitted themselves creditably in a Bharathanatya recital for the Bangalore Lalithakala Parishat, last week. They are all students of ‘Samskruthi’ and have been trained by Satyanarayana Raju, senior dancer.

The dancers opened their programme with the Pushpanjali, a traditional concept, which helped create a proper mood. It was followed by a Shiva Panchakshara stotra. “Endaro Mahanubhavalu”, the popular “Pancharatna Kruthi”, was the major item, in which dancers sought to convey their grasp over the medium. Few episodes like Shabari Moksha, Seetha Kalyana from Ramayana were performed charmingly. Though “Entha muddo Entha sogaso” is a melodious composition, it had less scope for Abhinaya. They concluded with a composition of Bhadrachala Rama Das. The students – R Chaitra, Adithi Sadashiva, Prithvi Parthasarathi, Gowri Sagar and Nikhitha Manjunath performed with ease.

Karthick Hebbar’s vocal was added attraction of the programme, while Shakunthala Prabhath, Lingaraju and Karthick Sathavalli, supported on Natuvanga, mridanga and flute, respectively.

Mandolin concert

Rabindranath Tagore Nagar (RT Nagar) Cultural Association is catering to the cultural needs of RT Nagar and surrounding areas, from last 25 years. It conducts music, dance, bhajan programmes every month, punctually apart from annual music festival, competition and aradhana programmes. The silver jubilee music festival was held last week with instrumental music, Hindustani recital, sugam sangeeth and dance, apart from vocal.

The musical instrument mandolin is attracting young aspirants very much, all over. One such person Prasanna Kumar Ballal gave a mandolin recital in this festival on Wednesday. He started off in style with a well-structured varna in the raga Todi.

The invocatory piece on Ganesha was followed by few tuneful compositions like ‘Bagaayanaiah’ and ‘Naada Sudharasa’. “Raghuvamsha” is common in any instrumental concert. But he chose Simhendra Madhyama for alapana, thana and pallavi. It was melodious, pleasant without being scholarly. With some more higher training and experience he can bring depth to his music.

A band of experienced instrumentalists gave inspiring support to him – Mathur Srinidhi on violin, Anoor Ananthakrishna Sharma on mridanga, Narayana Murthy on ghata and B Bhagyalakshmi on morching.

Kalakshetra style

Prof  M R Krishnamurthy, veteran artiste, is known in the field as a senior dancer, choreographer and teacher. He has trained a number of young aspirants in his institution ‘Kalakshithi’ during last 25 years. Two such students gave a dance recital (Aradhana) as a tribute to their Guru. Gagana Badrinath is a software engineer and has passed Vidwat examination in Bharathanatya. The other dancer Suchitra Diwakar is also a computer engineer and a post graduate in fine arts.

The programme “Aradhana” not only gave a glimpse of Kalakshetra’s choreographic thoroughness, but reassured that Rukmini Devi Arundale’s student (Prof  M R Krishnamurthy) is doing a good job in keeping alive its reputation. Gagana and Suchitra opened their Bharathanatya recital with a Pushpanjali (Naata raga), customarily. They offered salutation to Ardhanareeswara through a composition (Kumudakriya) of Dikshitar.

Naturally the main item was a varna, in the typical Kalakshetra tradition. The popular “Chalame Jesevaiyya” in the Natakaranji raga was a treat. Kuvempu’s famous verse “Beral ge koral’ was the special item of the day, specially choreographed by Prof  A Janardhanan, for the occasion. Moods and feeling of Radha and Krishna were brought beautifully through the Ashtapadi of Jayadeva and concluded with a thillana in the raga Dhanashree. Both performed neatly and they have good future in the years to come.

No doubt Hariprasad’s melodious vocal and unfailing musical flourishes were the high sport of the programme. Natuvanga by Rakesh, mridanga by Lingaraju, violin by Pradesh Achar and flute by Mahesh Swamy – all supported with good understanding.