Meena Venkatt in New Indian Express
The poetical work by Pillai Perumal Iyengar of 14th century took a totally new dimension of music and dance to enchant the audience for one and half hours, thanks to the efforts of Smt. Vanathi Raguraman who composed the music for it and Dr. Raghuraman for his special guidance on the literary part.
One of the unique aspects of Thiruvaranga Kalambagam is the presence of all the nine rasas in the poetry, most of which were beautifully brought out by Lakshmi. The opening piece was Puya Vaguppu which talks about the valour of Thiruvarangan, in which the Sringara of Thalaivi is dealt with. Smt. Lakshmi used rendering of jathi chollus to enact the episodes of Krishna leela and Gajendra Moksham beautifully.
In the piece that followed the dancer depicted very aptly the concern of Sevili thaai on seeing her love laden daughter’s plight. The ‘Ammaanai’ part in the production was very much entertaining wherein the main aspect was haasyam.
The beauty of ‘Madakku’ poetry in Tamil literature enlightened the audience. Here, the same line takes a new meaning when the syllables are broken in a different manner while singing second time. All the dancers were well rehearsed and there was total co-ordination in the presentation.
Venue: Bharat Kalachar, YGP Auditorium, 7.30 p.m.
Date: January 8, 2008 Thiruvaranga Kalambagam- Thematic presentation: Sri Mudralaya,Chennai
Director/Choreographer/lead role/player: Lakshmi Ramaswamy
