Sunday 15 January 2012

Article - An evening with the celestial enchantress - Nanditha Prabhu


Why this loud noise about being all embarrassing and open? Why no encouragement for creating rasikas, who can not only applaud their genre of dance, but also appreciate and accept other genres? It is high time that art lovers give this a serious thought and while dancers put on various costumes to enact various roles, the rasikas and art lovers should   learn to shed their prejudices and attitudes and be ready to receive. As I returned home after this special evening, I was disturbed.  I couldn’t help thinking of a rasika, Catherine, who once suggested, “If you have true passion for the art, you will find joy in dancing every day in your own garage. Why do you need big auditoriums and a hundred people to applaud?”

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2 comments:

  1. Nanditha forgot to tell us the name of the diva. Where is her heavenly dance video on YouTube?

    Every time I see a 120 kg 5-foot tall "celestial enchantress" devoid of any of the sahaja or a-yatnaja alamkaras, and draped in some shabby baggy wrappings to hide the absence of any trace of a waistline and to miraculously save her from performing any of the 108 karanas, I wonder if they ever look in the mirror or open the Natya Shastra where they can find that the "Satvika - food for the soul" refers not to idlis but to the kind of Abhinaya that is absent in most "celestial" mohiniattam recitals. After your soul tastes of Satvika, it does not go to the toilet to relieve itself. I admire people whose soul sneezes, sweats and burps from time to time.

    The questions Nanditha should have asked Padma Subrahmanyam when she joined her classes and is now carefully avoiding answering are, "What is actually so celestial in Mohiniattam"? Was it given by a heavenly being in a revelation 200 years ago to Vadivelu, or was it his short-lived flimsy mental invention that could not survive outside the elitist cultural greenhouse of Swati Tirunal?

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  2. The damsel come to give a secret performance in Chennai. Of course she did not even announce it in a newspaper. She chose to come at the most competitive time of the year. Did she expect everyone to enjoy the frustration of driving on the crazy road at a peak hour? On 5th Jan The Hindu listed 20 dance performances in the evening, and many more music concerts. At 7 pm there was Gopika Varma's group performance, so all mohiniyattam fans probably went there. Was the damsel in her right mind to come to compete for the audience in Chennai with Harinie Jeevitha? Why the temple rhythms of Kerala are not to the taste of the Chennai rasikas is up to Nanditha to answer.

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