Roja Kannan

It was quiet, conventional Bharatanatyam without any of the hype which goes with some contemporary recitals in Roja Kannan’s performance for the high noon slot in Music Academy’s Dance Festival 2008. The dancer had the great asset of a fi ne take-off point in the high calibre of the supporting team led by her guru Adyar K. Lakshmanan wielding the cymbals with Radha Badri for singing, Nellai Kannan on the mridangam, R. Kaliarasan on the violin and T.Sashidhar on the flute.

After starting with her guru’s composition of Nandichol and Siva Dhyanam set to raga Vasant, Roja proceeded to the centrepiece of Ponniah Pillai’s navaragamalika varnam, ‘Saami Ninne Kori’ set to Rupakam. The message of the nayika who has lost her heart to Tanjapuri Vasa was communicated with dignity in a savoured leisurely fashion with the interpretative part enhanced through fine sancharis.

While the dancer’s abhinaya facility was evident, the rhythm-correct dancing, in the drut passages, lacked articulated geometrical clarity in movement, looking hurried. This did not take away from the quality of the sparkling teermanams recited with authority by guru Adyar Lakshmanan, full of a musicality coming from the organic growth of the rhythmic interlude, where the arithmetic of numbers becomes poetry. Some of the contemporary teermanams have the dazzling cleverness without the aesthetics at times. The varnam rose to a high note of climax in the charanam, ‘Satileni Kalyani’.

The purely interpretative part of the recital spoke, beginning with the Kshetragna padam in Anandabhairvai, ‘Emani Thelpudu’ portraying the separation pangs of the proshitapatika, temporarily bereft of her husband away on work, the internalised abhinaya full of conviction. The slow pace of the song, sung with feeling by Radha, became a metaphor epitomising the drag of time as the nayika in her loneliness reminisces on the moments of his leave taking. Striking a contrasting mood was the javali, a Swati Tirunal composition in Behag, ‘Saramaina’ projecting the duped and angry khandita nayika. Roja concluded with the tillana in Sankarabharanam, a composition of Moolaiveetu Rangaswamy Nattuvanar. Again the manner in which each karvai forms one unit with one movement idea from an adavu taken to the finish giving this genre of the margam a definite identity, is not always seen in the choreography of tillanas now.

Source: The Hindu