Music & dance reviews

Too loud

Ganesh pandals have come up all over the city, entertaining the people with a variety of cultural programmes.

In the Vinayaka festival, though music is the choice of most of the organisers, other allied arts like dance, Harikatha, are also featured. Occasionally drama, and puppet show are also organised by few mandalis.

Sri Vidyaranya Yuvaka Sangha had organised cultural programmes by celebrities and a special spacious pandal attracted a large gathering. The pandal with beautifully decorated Ganapathy and food stalls, was vibrating with enthusiasts every day.

Praveen D Rao who directed a music programme here, is a talented artiste. Praveen is known not only as a percussionist but also as a vocalist, music director, composer and actor too. Well known lyrics of Tulasidas ‘Gayiye Ganapathi’ – gave the concert a bright start. With a melodious voice M D Pallavi, traversing in all the three octaves easily, stole the show.

The next song (Adi Shankaracharya) was an effort to exploit the various possibilities of the “voice”. It was followed by  an instrumental ensemble led by the flute. ‘Pogadiralo Ranga’ – is not a new composition for the music lovers. But it was rendered with a different flavour, with  scintillating BGM.

With ‘Swara’ and ‘Jathies’ the ‘Shanthi manthra’ was presented by the ‘Anthar Dwani’ Troupe. ‘Kolalanudutha Banda Namma Gopiyakanda’ in ‘Vilamba kaala’ brought out the potentiality of Varijashree’s voice.

The ending of the ‘Bhumi Thabid modidhange’ was too loud, though it is a well known composition. Lyrics of Dr Chandrashekar Kambar appeared garbled by heavy vibration! The instrumental BGM provided the excitement, which was aimed at mass appeal.

The gathering enjoyed it throughout and was the result of talent and experience of Praveen D Rao. A band of talented instrumentalists – Arun Kumar, Pramath Kiran, Pradyumna, Soloman, Rajgopal, Tony D’Silva and others – contributed to the success of the programme.

Rhythm oriented 

Sri Vinayaka Seva Samithi is another organisation, where people thronged for the darshan of the Ganapathy and cultural programmes. Sugam sangeeth, devotional music, folk music apart from classical music, dance, and yakshagana – were held in the specially erected pandal at the 4th Block of Jayanagar. Pushpa Kashinath who gave a veena recital here on Wednesday, hails from a artistes family.

A student of T Sharada and Anoor Ramakrishna, Pushpa has passed Vidwat examination and has also performed in many places in and outside the country. But the current concert was different in many ways.

She was accompanied by four percussionists – khanjari (A V Kashinath), tabla (Kiran Godkhindi), dhol (Vyasa Vittala) and mridanga (Anoor Dattatreya Sharma), indicating that the recital would be rhtym-oriented. By limiting the number of compositions, Pushpa reserved more time for improvisations and carried the audience with her.

Hindola was the piece de resistance of the concert. With tuneful ragalapana and rhythmic swaraprasthara, ‘Samajavaragamana’ was evocative. Earlier, she also presented few compositions like – Orajupu, Tharakkabindige, Ramachandra Bhavayami – neatly. ‘Vasudevayani’ which was a very common krithi in the olden days, built an atmosphere of joy.

No doubt, the Veena player is competent enough to perform impactfully and the ‘Thani’ or the percussion round pleased the gathering. But the concert also underlined the need to wed melody to rhythmic artistry.

Worth  watching

Hithaishy Dhanan gave a Kuchipudi dance recital under the aegis of the Indian Institute of World Culture under the ‘Renaissance artists and Writers Association’ endowment. She has been trained by Vyjayanthi Kashi and Uma Muralikrishna and has performed in many cultural centres of India. She is a post graduate in performing arts and a graduate in Architecture too.

From the initial item itself, Hithaishy was able to carry conviction. It was followed by the popular invocatory piece ‘Gajavadana beduve’ in the raga Hamsadhwani. After ‘Rukmini Kalyana’, the familiar ‘Marakathamani’ revealed a glimpse of her good training. Though brief, all the attractive aspects of the art getting the due emphasis, it was pleasing.

Her Abhinaya aspect came to the fore in the Annamachar Krithi ‘Singarinchu’ and concluded with a ‘Shivastakam’ neatly. Hithaishy’s performance was pleasing and deserves to be watched. By the way, though the vocal music was good, the recording quality was not, which is to be taken care of in future.