We have not seen Swapna Sundari perform solo for quite sometime. Endowed with immense talent and maturity to match, she seems to have a timeless appeal. We have yet to come across a Kuchipudi / temple dance practitioner who responds to the jatis with vigour, holds a stance that can give a teenager a run for her art, sings on par with any given vocalist accompanist and is a cut above the rest in rendering an entire verse in a rich and mellifluous voice, without panting for breath as she dances! Abhinaya, be it shringara, bhakti, or any of the navarasas, is done with an artistic authenticity that catapults her to the league of Balamma.
Swapna Sundari presented the temple dance (Vilasini Natyam) structured Parijatam which is nothing but the story of Satyabhama, as a first person verse narrative etched to dance. The dancer gave us a brief on this piece as also on the dance practised by Devadasis of yore in the temples of Andhra Pradesh (more specifically East Godavari). Right from the costume to the jewellery, she replicated the temple dancers of the lost era sans the gloss. The dance begins as a sort of soliloquy ( pravesa daruvu ) where the haughty but Krishna-obsessed Satyabhama displays her qualities, impressing the audience with her lofty character. Swapna Sundari interspersed the dance with dialogue and song. Her eyes expressed all the fleeting emotions that go with the character of Satya, the royal consort of Lord Krishna whose vanity and rage has turned into an axiom in our region. The entire dance rested in eye language as the pivot around which the jatis, hastabhinaya and song/dialogue revolve. All instances follow in a series: her quest for Krishna, her epistle pleading him to come, her envy of his other consorts, her imagination running riot about her husband's other interests, her possessive nature, her pride in her royal stock, her excessive love-every small detail comes to life and was enacted with a liveliness by Swapna. It is a pleasure to watch her execute the footwork or moves with absolute grace and ease, yet keeping accurate pace to talam.
The serpentine braid of Satyabhama and the character of Madhavi are symbolic in the sense, one serves as a prop to display varied emotions while the maiden Madhavi is her alter ego, who keeps questioning her with logic. ‘Parijatam', though long-winding, came to be a thing of joy in Swapna's hands. Raghunandan's nattuvangam was stupendous. Sri Ganesh and Sridharachari on the percussion were commanding. Murali on the flute spoke eloquent while Shiva on the violin exuded melody. Vocal support by Sudharani did not complement the wonderful accompanists. In fact, Swapna Sundari's own voice more than supplemented the vocalist's meager tones.
What followed was an antithesis in the form of Kuchipudi which just did not fuse into the nomenclature of ‘fusion'. Srutakeerti and ensemble gave a cinematic delivery of classical Kuchipudi set to recorded music and song, some culled out of films! Then came a solo by Pratyusha, Alamelumanga Hari antaranga.. an Annamacharya keertana set to Kuchipudi dance style. The entire lyric was sung to vilambakalam and the dance followed suit, at the most launching into madhyamakalam when doing the nritta. There was no proper approach to footwork delineation, no count of cycles of speed.
The Swati Tirunal's tillana in Ganatri was anything but nritta-based which is what tillana is all about.
The dance performances formed the first day of Nrityotsav 2011 hosted at Ravindra Bharati under the aegis of TSR Lalitha Kala Parishat and Sruti Art Academy.
Published - October 13, 2011 04:58 pm IST
