And Narada Gana Sabha's main auditorium in Chennai was packed on both days of the fest, a heartening sight for dancers especially! The fest titled 'Srishti-Srinkhala' was themed on nature, mythology and life.

There were 12 group performances of about 20 minutes each, featuring young dancers. While few of the groups stuck to group choreography in traditional hardcore Bharatanatyam, some groups opted for movement techniques of new age dance.

On the inaugural day, dance gurus Prof. Sudharani Raghupathy and Chitra Visweswaran were honoured. And the chief guest for the evening was Kumararani Meena Muthiah.

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Traditional vs fusion music and dance

The costumes and fusion dance created mixed feelings among the Chennai rasikas on day one. It commenced with 'Space' by Kavitha Ramu and group (Malini, Poornima, Anamika and Dhanashree), followed by 'Wind and Rain' by Rajeswari Sainath alongwith her sishyas Amaram Sangeetha, Smitha Madhav, Vaishnavi Sainath And Shilpa Rajpal from Hyderabad. This group narrated stories of the rain God - Varuna and the wind God - Vayu in Bharatanatyam.

Following this was 'Fire' presented as a modern fusion piece by Madhuvanthi Arun, Narendra Kumar, Anusha Narendra alongwith about 20 little students of Anitha Guha.

'Seasons' was presented in Mohiniattam by Pallavi Krishnan alongwith Sindhu, Sreeja and Sina from Trichur, Kerala.

Four foreign students of Saroja Vaidhyanathan of New Delhi presented 'Sea and River' in Bharatanatyam. Particularly noticeable was Oxana Chougvera from Russia for her effortless execution of neat adavus. The other dancers in this group were Izumisato from Japan, Maragatham Pillai and Saraswathi Muthulingam of Sri Lanka.

Dancer A. Lakshman chose to perform the nattuvangam and presented his students in a group choreography themed on 'Earth'. This featured Madura Vishwanathan, Jyotsna, Ishwarya, Dhivya, Girish, Sadana, Fatima, Chandana and Priyadarshini.

The second day commenced with a Bharatanatyam-Manipuri jugalbandhi by Santnu Chakraborty and Sanjeev Bhattacharya from Delhi. Titled 'Devatha' this also featured Varsha Rani, Shikha and Purbitha Mullick.

This was followed by a presentation on 'Mountain' by the senior disciples of Prof. Sudharani Raghupathy and featured Padma S. Raghavan, Priya Murle, Nalini Prakash, Shylaja Ramji, Priya S. Dixit and Aruna Subbiah. The dancers depicted a scene from Kamba Ramayanam, where the mountain Chandra Shailam is compared to the beautiful form of lord Vishnu.

'Joy of Spring' was presented by actress-dancer Shobana and her students Suma Mani, Seethalakshmi, Vijay, Archana, Bhavani, Ashwini, Revathy Charanya and Srividya. From Jayadeva's Ashtapadi to Bho Shambo, this presentation had dance movements set to western rythm.

Young dancer Divyasena alongwith her students presented mythological stories themed on birds. This featured Raghavi, Varsha, Vinaya, Sneha, Shakthi, Bhargavi, Swarnavarsha, Mathangi, Dharini, Gajalakshmi, Sindhu, Vandana, Durga and Sneha. Divyasena had woven together three stories in a neat group choreography in Bharatanatyam.

'Maruthi Leelai' depicting the scene where Bheema confronts Hanuman was presented by M.S. Hariharan, Premila Hariharan alongwith Rajeev Diwakar, Sruti Sunilkumar, Aparna, Karthika Shravanthi, Sukhi and Raja Bird.

The concluding show was a mythological story of lord Ayyappa presented by Binesh Mahadevan and his students Darshana, Devi, Yamuna, Gayatri, Suja, Vidya, Saranya, Deepthi, savithri, Sindhuja and Divya.

Lyrics and music
All the groups featured at the two day fest had worked on their thematic presentations exclusively for this fest, by either culling out verses from Indian literature or composing new lyrics and music.

Lyrics were composed by Revathy Sankkaran and music by Rajesh Vaidhya (for Space), lyrics were by Seshadri Ganapadigal and Kavi Kannan and music by B.V Balasai (for Wind-Rain).

The verses from Kamba Ramayanam for the production of Shree Bharatalaya were culled out by N. Sasirekha and the music was scored by senior musician Vidwan Madurai N. Krishnan. Prof. Raghuraman had composed the lyrics for the presentations of Lakshman, Hariharan and Binesh Mahadevan, while the music was scored by A.S. Murali, Hariprasad, Chitrambari and Ranganayaki Jayaraman.

Keyboard artiste Venkata Subramanian had composed the lyrics and music for Divyasena's presentation on 'Birds'.

Compering on the two days was done by dancers Divya Kasthuri and Jayanthi Sundar.

IDA is a non-profit organization founded in the United States and head quartered at New York. The Madras chapter was founded in 1986. Its Advisory Council members are dancers Radhika Shurajit (Ph: 24911544) and Revathi Ramachandran (Ph: 24997597). E-mail: radhikashurajit@yahoo.com, kalasadhanalaya@hotmail.com