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BHARATAM SAMANVAYAMNatyarangam, an offshoot of the Narada Gana Sabha, Chennai, conducts an annual dance festival each year. The theme this year was 'Exploring Different Religions through Bharatanatyam'. There were two dancers everyday, both depicting the same religion. The organisers had arranged for a resource person for each religion, who spoke between the two dance presentations.
Prof.Chandrasekhar covered Hinduism, Islam, Christianity, Sikhism and Jainism. To differentiate between the portrayals, he changed his angavastram for every religion. He commenced with a Pancha Deva Stuthi in ragamalika, in praise of the Hindu Gods, Ganesha, Shiva, Vishnu, Surya, and Devi. Set in five different jathis, the item gave scope to the tala mastery of the dancer. The next religion he took up was Islam. The doctrines of the religion were enacted through the poetry of Dr. Abdul Rahman in the form of a song in the regular Carnatic format.
He was ably supported by an orchestra with Jaya Chandrasekhar weilding the cymbals, Hariprasad as vocalist, Adyar Gopinath on the mridangam, and T.K.Padmanabhan on the violin.A novel experiment such as this, needs to be encouraged in order to make the dance form widen it's horizons, and to make it more relevant to today's society. |
Vyjayanthimala Bali and C.V.Chandrasekhar covered all religions in their respective programmes on the opening and closing days of the festival. N.Srikanth and Krishnaveni Lakshmanan dealt with Hinduism; Priya Murle and Francis Barboza, Christianity; Parvathi Ravi Ghantasala and Anuradha and Sridhar, Jainism; Sumitra Nitin and Bragha Bessell, Buddhism; Manjari Chandrasekhar and Anita Ratnam, Islam.
A sanskrit verse of Father Devasya, from the Christu Bhagavatam, gave the moving account of the last moments of Judas. Having betrayed Jesus, he lives to repent his sins and dies an inglorious death. After Christianity, was Jainism. Stories in sanskrit from Jain literature depicting veera rasa and hasya rasa were enacted. ... Can you hide the sun with a piece of cloth....?Or can you catch a flame....? The music continued in the Carnatic style throughout.
'Sumiran karale kahe nanak...' a sabadh of Guru Nanak dealt with Sikhism. A beautiful song with a haunting melody. Chandrasekhar concluded with a tillana in Madhyamavathi ragam. His mastery over rhythm was apparent in the crisp jathis of the tillana. Using the words of Subramania Bharati in his poem 'Pudiya Aathi Choodi', preaching Universal Religion, the dancer prayed as a Hindu, a Christian, a Muslim, a Jain and a Sikh.
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