Percussive Arts Centre Founded in 1981, in memory of the veteran mridangist Palghat Mani Iyer, Percussive Arts Centre works towards the promotion of the percussive arts. Its activities include study circles, seminars and symposia, talent promotion concerts, inter-state cultural exchange programmes, studies in musicology and documentation of material on percussive instruments. The centre has so far organised eight seminars in the 'Thaalavadhya' series. The proceedings are also published. Since 1999, the proceedings are also being video recorded. The centre organises an annual 'Thaalavadyotsava' festival in the last week of May in Bangalore. This year it is scheduled between 27 and 31 May.

In her welcome address, Vimala Rangachar who heads MES Kalavedi pointed out the objectives of the seminar. She said, "Generally mridangists prefer to play for music and they don't wish to play for dance recitals as if it is secondary. We wanted to highlight the fact that mridangam playing for dance is very important and at the same time different."

Bangalore K. Venkatram, a senior percussionist and Executive Director, Percussive Arts Centre outlined the various activities of the centre and the objectives of the seminar. Here he said that this seminar was being held following an idea prompted by art critic Nandini Ramani. In her inaugural address at an earlier seminar on Thaalavadyas organised by the centre in January 2002 at Gayana Samaja, Bangalore, Nandini Ramani had requested that a seminar be held on the techniques of mridanga playing for dance. Venkatraman added that the centre was also involved in documenting the names of mridangists.

B.M. Sundaram, a musicologist from Pondichery delivered the keynote address. He pointed out that the mridangam should elevate a concert. He also read out a long list of mridangists from 'Appla' to Pandanainallur Srinivasan and Nellai Kannan who accompany at dance recitals. And the list spanned a few centuries of mridangam artistes.

Following the inauguration, the first lec-dem featured senior mridangist Pandanallur Srinivasa Pillai. The paper was presented by young dancer Archana Narayanamurthy who performed three full pieces of the Bhartanatyam repertoire. Srinivasa Pillai accompanied her on the mridangam.

Following this, Bangalore based dancer Padmini Ravi pointed out the various aspects that a mridangam should not be doing in a Bharatanatyam recital. She felt that the mridangam should not over-shadow the dance performance. Mridangist N.G. Ravi provided the accompaniment.

Day-two of the seminar commenced with a presentation by Nandini Ramani. Here, the dancer-critic played some of the vintage audio recordings of the performances of the late Balasaraswathi. It was also unusual to watch Nandini herself demonstrate portions of some of the dance pieces. Kanchipuram G. Ekambaram played the mridangam here.

This was followed by young mridangist K.S.R. Anirudha of Shree Bharatalaya, Madras. His demonstration titled, 'Thattu-Mettu: the Dancing Mridangam' highlighted the various ways in which the mridangam can embellish a dance performance. Through 13 examples in the form of dance segments, he pointed out the differences in mridangam playing for rhythmic movements and abhinaya with different flavours. He was assisted by two dancers Priya Murle and Aruna Subbiah, both disciples of Prof. Sudharani Raghupathy.

Bangalore based dance guru Padmini Ramachandran in her lec-dem focused on the different 'Nadais' and 'Jathis'. Vidwan Harsha Samaga played the mridangam and the dancers were Mithun, Shyam and Deepika David.

The other participants at the seminar were dance guru B. Bhanumathi of Nrithya Kala Mandiram (mridangam by Palghat N. Narayanaswamy), Lalitha Srinivasan of Nupura (mridangam by V.R. Chandrasekhar), Padmini Rao of Ponniah Lalitha Kala Academy (mridangam by S.V. Balakrishna), Kiran Subramanyan and Sandhya Kiran of Rasika Academy of Performing Arts (mridangam by Bhavani Shankar) and senior dance guru Narmada who was assisted by her disciples P. Praveen and Soundarya Srivatsa, with mridangam by G. Gurumurthy.

The valedictory address was delivered by art critic S.N. Chandrasekhar and H.R. Keshavamurthy presided. The audience at this seminar comprised senior artistes-dancers and mridangists, art connoisseurs of Bangalore, young dancers and students of the MES college.

The papers presented here will be published by the Percussive Arts Centre soon. And the event was co-sponsored by the Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi.

Contact: Bangalore K. Venkatram, Percussive Arts Centre, No.183, 8th Cross, 2nd Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore - 560 011. Ph: 080-6563079.