Dancer Neeraja Srinivasan and her group performed at the annual month-long dance festival organised by Tamil Nadu Tourism at Mamallapuram, the heritage site near Chennai In this column, she shares her experience at this festival.

This was my tenth year ( or was it the ninth or my eleventh) at the annual dance festival in Mamallapuram.

For a dancer, every invitation generates some excitement.
And it isn't often that one gets to perform at a world heritage site.

Every year, Tamil Nadu Tourism hosts this festival where the massive stone bass relief work on 'Arjuna’s Penance' serves as the backdrop to our performances.

Since my dance school, 'Thaandavam School of Bharathanatyam', has grown now, I decided to present a group choreography for the fest.

As a dancer, I have always performed solo and so, this was my maiden venture into group choreography. It wasn't easy - by the end of it all I suspect my blood pressure has shot up quite a bit!

I chose nine verses from Andal’s Thiruppavai each one connected to the other by a musical interlude (composed by my ever co-operative and diligent vocalist Meera Ramesh).
The 'Thiruppavai' as I believe it is one of the sweetest set of poems ever written. The language, the metaphors, the thoughts are all close to my heart. If you have not had the occasion to read these verses, you should do so on a wonderful, warm evening in total quiet.

Having selected the verses and composed the music, I began the choreography for my group of eight students (the Tourism Department allows only a group of ten including the musicians to present the show but I pleaded my case and took two extra artistes!).

We practised almost every other day for about six weeks.
There is so much to do when you prepare a new show. And it isn't easy and people who aren't close to dancers perhaps are not aware of the one hundred things that must be done to present a decent show.

I had spent time every other day with our tailor - to hem a bit of cloth, locate a missing piece of cloth and fix it, iron a costume for the thirds time!

If you have seen our photos here, I'll agree I went a little overboard with the colours. I promise to be more subtle next time round.

The ride down the East Coast Road is a lovely one for those who enjoy the outdoors. You have the sea on one side and lots of farms, trees and a canal on the other.

Over the years, the traffic has become chaotic and heavy but as you leave the city behind and breeze down past Muttukkadu, the backwaters, you begin to enjoy the ride.

Tamil Nadu Tourism has done a great job in setting up the venue. The massive stage (always carpeted and therefore precluding those smooth turns I so love to do) with the sculpted backdrop, dramatic lighting (my photographer’s tragedy), the cool breeze teasing the 'fan' in my costume and an audience comprising hundreds of excited, non-judgmental foreigners from all over the world.

I love performing here because their eagerness to watch another Bharathanatyam programme (even though it may be the third of that evening) is infectious.

In Chennai, people in the audience chat with each other, or read a newspaper or yawn from the front row, and this really discourages a dancer.

But in Mamallapuram, this audience is so endearing and comforting, always applauding and appreciating, that artistes really feel good about being here. While on that open stage (especially on a full moon evening) it is so easy forget the recital and stage, etc, and just get absorbed into the ambience.

The dance festival provides us 45 minutes performance time and some time to provide a preview on the theme and the recital.

The verses I had selected describe a typical "margazhi" sunrise, when Andal wakes up and goes to her friends' and cousin's houses to wake them up for the ritual bath. After gathering them all together they go to the temple and sing praises of lord Krishna/Vishnu. We had installed a handsome figurine of Krishna on stage, decked with flowers and jewellery. For the scene where Andal describes her sleeping cousin surrounded by lamps, I performed on one half of the stage and my student Ranganayaki sat in a sleeping pose in the other half surrounded by four little ones with lamps.The verses we presented were: Margazhi thingal,ongi ulagalanda,thoomani madathu, orithi maganai, chitranchiru kale,anru ivvulagam, male manivanna, azhi mazhai & the last verse Vanga Kadal.