There are many ways to celebrate an artiste.
When it comes to multi talented maestros like violinist Lalgudi Jayaraman, the creativity of the arts community unfolds into beautiful dance presentations.
Yes, many dance gurus and their students honoured Lalgudi Jayaraman through dance, presenting his compositions.
The composer and the audience enjoyed the visual presentation of the compositions.
Result is that the packed house in the Music Academy witnessed a rich aura of music and dance on the evening – Oct. 23, 2007.
Lalgudi, as he is for his fans, composed many varnams and tillanas in ragas that are pleasing to the ear. They are also rich in laya patterns that make the dancers take up the compositions as main pieces of their recital. He has also composed an operatic ballet, ‘Jaya Jaya Devi’. A part of this ballet and a few other compositions came alive on the stage, presented by eminent dancers.
The show was a concept of Chennai based cultural organization, Tamil Maiyam, founded by Rev. Jegath Gaspar Raj which promotes Tamil art and literature.
For the first time two schools of senior dance gurus, Shree Bharatalaya of Prof. Sudharani Raghupathy and Chidambaram Academy of dance run by dancer Chitra Visweswaran came together to perform a dance piece. They presented ‘Angayarkanni’, navarasa pada varnam in ragamalika.
Just not the dancers, the premier arts institution Kalakshetra also joined the celebrations. Leela Samson, director of Kalakshetra, Shijith Krishna, a faculty at the institution and the students presented three thillanas in ragas Revathi, Madhuvanthi and Vasantha.
Dance guru Rhadha chose Ardhanari’, an episode from the ballet ‘Jaya Jaya Devi’ for the evening.
Gurus Vasanthalakshmi and Narasimhachari presented a Pushpanjali in the raga Nagaswaravali and a jatiswaram in the raga Rasikapriya. The presentation of Jatiswaram in two different styles, Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam spoke elaborately of the compositions that is capable of suiting to variety of dance forms!
Senior dance guru V. P. Dhananjayan and his senior student, Shobana Bhalchandra presented two compositions of Subramanya Bharathi that were set to tune by Lalgudi, ‘Ethanai kodi inbam’ in the raga Janasammodhini and ‘Yengirindo varuguvado’ in the raga Suddha Saveri.
