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| Alapana arts, Singapore presented 'Nritya Tarangini', a classical dance presentation on 15 March at Khoo Auditorium, at the Singapore Chinese Girls' school, Singapore. The show was choreographed by the well known dance couple V.P. Dhananjayan and Shantha from Madras. 'Nritya Tarangini' featured Sreelatha Vinod and Lavanya Raghuraman, both disciples of the Dhananjayans and five youngsters of Singapore Lakshmi Srikanth, Deva Priya Appan, Shobhinya Karthikeyan, Rajalakshmi Raghavan and Jayapriya Ardhanari besides the Dhananjayans.
In this column, V.P. Dhananjayan says how he produced 'Nritya Tarangini'... "Alapana was founded by Veena Vidushi Bhanumathi Raghuraman and her husband Raghuraman, a Business Executive and an accomplished mridangist. Their vision is to create a friendly spirit and atmosphere between artists and students of dance and music in Singapore and make a forum for them to work together. They also provide a professional platform for the Indian artistes passing through Singapore. So far, many musicians from Chennai have been presented by them. Raghuraman’s daughter Lavanya a Bharatanaatyam dancer, has been attending classes in Bharatakalanjali whenever she is in Chennai. A student of carnatic violin and vocal as well, Lavanya trained under Kalakshetra's Girish Panikkar. She works at the Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society. Raghuraman requested us to produce a group programme with Singapore trained dancers. And to inspire them he insisted that we should also perform with them.
Initially we gave the selected six, intensive training and taught them three major group items. Later on, our senior disciple Sreelatha Vinod (who has just temporarily migrated to Singapore along with her husband) took over and made them practise every day and polished the items we taught them. The dancers seemed to be very enthusiastic and hard working, inspite of other work pressure. They were trying to make use of the opportunity and focused intensively into the intricacies of the items, and correcting their dance technique wherever found necessary. We titled the programme as 'Nritya Tarangini' since it has ripples of the various aspects of Bharatanaatyam. The audience seemed to enjoy the show thoroughly. We designed a new set of costumes to give a fresh look to the whole presentation and made them at Chennai. When we reached Singapore on 8 March, we found the dancers really ready, thanks to Sreelatha who grilled them into shape. We took Vanathi (Vocal) and Rameshbabu (Mridangam) from Madras and the rest of the accompanists were from Singapore. We made them also attend a few intensive rehearsals, so that there was absolute co-ordination between the dancers and musicians.
The programme was also very professionally planned and managed very well by Raghuraman, including starting of the programme on the dot. Though the house was not full ( around 500 people attended) we had a very appreciative audience. We were also ready to perform audience requests and strangely and pleasantly many voiced me to perform 'Varugalaamo ayya...' from Nandanar charitam. There were also requests for 'Ennattavam' (Kaapi) and Tulsidas bhajan-Bhajamana. After the programme, an old couple came to stage and said they were in tears and went back to memories of the vintage Film 'Nandanar' by Dandapani Desikar. There were several heart warming comments after the programme and it was very evident that classical arts have not lost their value and appreciation in places like Singapore.
Earlier in 1988 we had done a similar production 'Ramanaatakam' involving about 60 dancers, under the auspices of SIFAS funded by the Singapore Government. And another production, 'Sanghamitra' wsa choreographed for the Singapore International Art Festival in 1992. After this performance on 15 March, a few other organizations have approached us to produce similar or more elaborate classical presentations this year or during 2004-05. This clearly shows that there is a very good demand for classical Bharatanaatyam productions." Contact: Alapna Arts, 450 Serangoon Road, #02-01 Singapore 218139.
If you attended this concert in Singapore or if you have a view on this article mail us at editor@kutcheribuzz.com
You can write to V.P. Dhananjayan at bkalanjali@eth.net
Click here to check out Dhananjayan's world tour schedule for this year. Here are the responses received at KutcheriBuzz: While in Singapore recently, I had the good fortune of witnessing the Dhananjayans' latest concert there. It is always such a wonderful pleasure to watch the Dhananjayans dance. Sreelatha Vinod, a senior disciple of the Dhananjayans now settled in Singapore, provided a very able anchor as Kaikeyi between Shanta-akka's role of Mantaraa and Dhananjayan-sir as Dasharata-Maharaja in an extract from the 'Ramanaatakam' . Their virtuosity and spontaneous creative ability was there for all to behold. This was, as I found out later, inspite of Akka suffering a very bad viral fever!! Dhananjayan-sir's depiction of Nandanar will always remain an evergreen favorite. The Singapore students who took part in this program are, indeed, a very fortunate and privileged lot. To perform together on stage with such great exponents is a rarity, even in India. It provided an excellent opportunity for them to learn not only the nuances of dance but also the essentials of professionalism that's equally important and applicable in all walks of life. It would serve them well to learn from this enriching experience. All in all, it was a splendid performance. India can take pride in having a pair of artistes as the Dhananjayans serving as their country's ambassadors-at-large. - Apsara Ram Gopal
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To start with, he made arrangements for us to audition well trained dancers from different teachers and schools in Singapore in January-February 2003. Out of the few who turned up for audition we could select only six including Lavanya. They were selected on the basis of their talent and availability of time to spend with us during our short stay in Singapore. There were very good dancers who wanted to be in the production, but they were all working or attending Universities and were reluctant to spend the amount of time we wanted them to be with us.
