Dear dancers, this is in a lighter vein (sorry this sounds like some
comedians who perform on American TV to a live audience...they have to
laugh or applaud when a light with the message flashes), so you can
laugh or smile, whatever...
Semmangudi Srinivasa Iyer, the great musician, was a family friend and
so I used to interact with him now and then. His humour was sharp.
Once at an awards committee meeting he said, “Does this carry any cash
or gold medal? If it is just a piece of paper why not give out more?”
Whenever anyone approached him to accept any honour he would jocularly
ask: "Panam ethanum unda?" (Any money included?) His humour
also showed that he did not take awards so seriously. But he always
tried to see that people who had contributed silently were recognized.
Read more in the site
It may sound like a clichéd statement, but I am a narthaki chiefly
because of my mother. I was taken to class when I was three! I cannot
recall my first few classes, but dance classes are a part of my early
childhood memories. To me dance class and Church Park convent go hand in
hand.
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During the season with so many performances taking place simultaneously,
one often has to choose out of the multiple performances, few which one
would like to see and forego others. I have selected a few in this
review of Festival Round up.
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Thomas Hardy remains the most enduring novelist writing stories based mostly on pastoral England. His Far From the Madding Crowd and Tess of the d’Urbervilles
remain compulsory school readings for students of English literature.
Mimi Partha Sarthy’s return to the stage was no less meaningful. A
hiatus of 14 years is like Ram's vanvas and Mimi left the stage for
family reasons. Nay, she was forced on stage because of her persistent
mother who saw her potential then and now.
Seeing her return to stage performance was like a mini wedding event,
full of assorted socialites and stars of dance in Bangalore. The night
of Jan 16th (Ayn Rand, another classic), Mimi chose that day to be back
in reckoning. Her daughter Hamsini did the intros and then her guru
Padmini Ravi conducted the show by walking on stage casually and
regaling the audiences with her dead pan delivery. She is the
eternal aunt of dance, having taught many in Malleswaram area. (What
Mylapore is to Madras, Malleswaram and Basavanagudi - hence Mal-gudi -
are to Bangalore). Padmini "aunty" can count two generations of dancers
as students to her credit because she started teaching very young
as the "neighborhood dance class aunt." That she has class and is not
crass (like new teachers calling themselves NATIONAL when they are
notional) shows solid work has no substitute or competition. Corporate
honchos Kiran Mazumdar, Sunil Alagh, (Padmini did state corporate
Bangalore does precious little for dance culture) super bureaucrat and
patron Chiranjiv Singh, educationist Vimala Rangachar and many local
dancers like Sridevi Unni, Lakshmi Gopalaswami, Subashini Vasanth were
in attendance, filling the Chowdiah hall to the brim.
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In this day and age, with the onslaught of artificial intelligence, when
the humanoid robot is being considered for ‘de facto’ as well as
‘de juro’ recognition as an ‘electronic person’, how anachronistic
would it seem to have the entire LGBT community to be derided and
detested for their third-gender orientation and legally recognized only
as non-persons? It would appear that way back in 1860, the British – as
part of their colonizing effort -- introduced a standardised Indian
Penal Code which replaced, among other things, a tolerant Indian
attitude to sexuality with a highly moralistic and hostile
Judaic-Christian one. Section 377 of the IPC was the legacy of an
archaic law against “unnatural” offences and stated: “Whoever
voluntarily has carnal intercourse against the order of nature with any
man, woman or animal shall be punished with imprisonment for life…”
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In the overcrowded festivals in Chennai during the season, one new
Margazhi dance festival has been added by Kuchipudi Art Academy for 7
days at the Academy premises. Conceived and curated by Venkat Vempati,
elder son of Vempati Chinna Sathyam, it aims at providing platform for
the young dancers. One welcomes it for this very reason as young dancers
need a platform to showcase their talent.
The festival was dedicated to late Chief Minister Jayalalitha. It was
inaugurated by Keshav Prasad, traditional Kuchipudi exponent from
Kuchipudi village and Mr. Natarajan, local MLA. With assistance from
Central Sangeet Natak Akademi, the festival from 25th till 31st December
2016 featured on the opening night Vempati’s granddaughter Vempati
Lakshmi Kameswari, Jayapriya Vikraman and Sahana Rao in Kuchipudi.
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