Post Diwali, dancers light up city stage

GURUGRAM: It’s not everyday you get to marvel at the beauty of India’s many dance forms. And recently, the city’s residents were treated to back-to-back performances featuring Odissi, Bharatanatyam, Kathak and Mohiniyattam.
First, an Odissi troupe enthralled the audience with a dance drama of hypnotic power. A day later, three danseuses, representing Bharatanatyam, Mohiniyattam and Kathak, put on a terpsichorean symphony of immense charm and wonder.
‘Madhurakruta’ is a narrative of the gods and their musical instruments.And it married, with rare transcendence, the timeless beauty of Bharatanatyam (‘Kalashree’ Rashmi Aggarwal), the coquettish appeal of Mohiniyattam (Arpita Nair) and the fluid refinement of Kathak (Vidya Gauri), in such a way as to transport the onlooker to the temples and groves and courtyards of old, when many would gather to witness, with raptness, the union of the spiritual and the temporal.
‘Madhurakruta’ was conceived and choreographed by Aggarwal and Gauri, and they, along with Nair, brought a lit-by-candles glow to the proceedings. Of course, their faces conveyed many an emotion: fun tiptoed into flirty, mirth segued into exasperation, and joyful transitioned into sulky. Aggarwal was as light-footed as Gauri was twinkle-toed as Nair was quietly graceful. It was, literally, rhapsody in motion.
On the previous evening, it was Odissi, that most intricate of dance forms, that came alive. After a beautiful devotional vignette (‘Devi’, a homage to the goddess Durga and her nine avatars), and the grace of the Saveri Pallavi, an Odissi dance that embraces the beauty of the dancer, the stage became a setting for ‘Dashmesha’, a mesmeric dance drama of gripping intensity.
A production of Aradhana Dance Foundation, Dashmesha tells the story of ‘Sitaharan’, an episode from the Ramayana. Here, into the Arcadian lives of Rama and Sita sneaks in Maricha, the deceitful deer who tries to lure them to their doom. The troupe, a heartening mix of experienced artistes and young dancers, did justice plenty to the ballet, and to their roles. The musicians, meanwhile, provided wonderful accompaniment to the choreography, creating an atmosphere to go with the conflicting moods that inhabit this great epic.
The Aradhana Dance Foundation, incidentally, was established by Panchanan Bhuyan, a disciple of the late (and great) Padma Vibhushan Kelucharan Mohapatra, that doyen of Odissi dance.
The pity was that few turned up to watch on either night. Those that did can only have gloried in the splendour of India’s classical dance traditions. It was the festival of lights all over again.