Titled 'Kavya Bharatham', the thematic dance fest, an annual feature from Natyarangam, the dance wing of Narada Gana Sabha had something interesting to offer this year too.

While last year, it was 'Navarasa', the nine human emotions presented in Bharatanatyam, this year, each performance at the five-day fest presented an epic from the Indian literature.

Five epics were presented, each by a male and a female dancer, who performed as a duo. And in all the presentations, the two dancers had to narrate the story by themselves adorning the various roles. By quick change of costumes and with an immediate transformation from one character to another, the dancers brought out the essence of each epic.

On the first day, it was Bharathiyar's 'Panchali Sabatham'. Veteran dancer Chitra Visweswaran took the role of Panchali. And the presentation highlighted the various emotions experienced by Panchali as a woman. Here, Vijay Madhavan, a disciple of Chitra Visweswaran took the roles of Bharatiyar, Vidhura, Arjuna, Bheeshma and Dushyasana. The music was scored by R. Visweswaran.

Chitra Visweswaran as 'Panchali'
and Vijay Madhavan as 'Dushyasana'

The second day saw 'Silappadikaram' presented by Sreelatha Vinod (who now shuttles between Singapore and Madras) and Anirudh Vasudevan. While Sreelatha took the roles of Kannagi and Madhavi, Anirudh took the roles of Kovalan and the king and both the dancers also represented the narrators. Music was set by Hariprasad of Kalakshetra.

'Sakuntalam' was presented by Lavanya Ananth and Adith Narayanan. Lavanya as Sakuntala and Adith as Dushyantha vibed with each other, especially in the duet sequences. Director of Kalakshetra, Rajaram had scored the music for this production. 'Manonmaniyam' the love-story of Manonmani and Purushottaman was presented by Indira Kadambi and Praveen Kumar, from Bangalore. T.V. Ramprasadh had set the music. The concluding day featured Bhavabhuti's 'Uttara Rama Charita' presented by Sheejith Krishna and Manjari Chandrasekhar.

Before each performance, the resource persons who co-ordinated with the dancers on the selection of verses, spoke about the epic and what was being presented that day. They were Va.Ve.Su., Avvai Natarajan, S. Ramaratnam, Sarada Nambi Arooran and K. Prashanth.

Honours for artistes

Designed by Natanam, the stage-prop for each day was a simple cloth banner with a symbol representing the epic. Earlier, the fest was inaugurated by dancer Alarmel Valli. Senior dance guru N.S. Jayalakshmi (of Kalakshetra fame) was honoured, Bhagvatulu Sitarama Sarma, and dancers Roja Kannan and Lavanya Ananth were presented endowment awards.

And the huge Sathguru Gnanananda Hall was almost full on all the days. And this probably states that Bharatanatyam in all its traditional splendour does have an audience. And huh, its Madras... so, if you have the stuff, you have your rasikas!