When Ragas produces a festival spirit

Chennai -based Shruti Patrika recently organized a program to catch the spirit of Holi through art. Chaitra Siram, a disciple of Bombay Jayashree, placed a unique set of ragas to portray the festival of colors. In addition to working with children suffering from autism, she teaches music in rural areas in Tamil Nadu.

Chetra chose the suitable raga to create a visual imagination of different colors. He presented Muthuswamy Deekshati’s Notusavaram to represent the white. The music of the Western band inspired Deekshati to create Sanskrit poetry, ‘Shyamale Meenakshi, (Shankara Bharanam). His young students sang with Shakti and Priya with Chaitra. The next time he depicted the color yellow with ‘Tunga Tarange’ (Humsdhani, Sadashiv Brahindral). In this song, his voice shone.

The main attraction of Chaitra’s session, one attempt in the customer (transferring tonic note for another in the raga and arriving in a separate raga), appreciated them from the audience. Starting with Mohanam, he moved the base note from Rishham (Ri to Ri) to reach Madhyamavati. Transferring the base to Gandharam (GA to GA), he sang the raga hindolam, and later shifted the Aadhaar note to Dhawam (DHA to DHA), she landed in Shuda Dhanasi. In this colorful array of ragas, Chaitra came up with a string of tunes: ‘Swagtam Krishna’ (Mohanam), ‘Govardhan Girisham’ (Hindolam), ‘Narayan Nina’ (Shudha Dhanasi) and ‘Karpagam’ (Madhyamavati).

The piece of penance was ‘Kakkai Sirginila Nandalala’, where Mahakavi Bharati has seen the colors of nature in the dark -skinned Krishna. His students also sang together. Chaitra concluded with a Meera Bhajan, ‘Holi plays Giridhari.’

Srivatsan on the keyboard, and Ayushman Siram on Mridangam gave good support.

Artism of beauty

Bharatanatyam dancer p. Beauty | Photo Credit: R. Ravindran

Bharatanatyam dancer p Sundarson demonstrated her versatility. He trains in acting under acting dancer Braga Basel. He is also a trained Kalapayatu artist. With a master in Bharatanatyam, the beauty teachs dance and choreography.

His first performance ‘Holi Aaye Re’ played the role of Holi in Brij with Radha and Gopis. Sundarson influenced confidence and good technology. The next time he presented the popular Abhiru ‘Abhiru Gulal Udhalaita Rang’ of Sant Chokhamela, which took us on a visit to Pandarpur, to show how Holi is celebrated in the city. Sundarson, who started learning dance under Dhanalakshmi Shankar and later V. Trained under Balgurunathan, was able to provoke happiness in the form of Panduranga dance among the colored powder in the air. However, in this presentation, the artist would have performed well by provoking Bhakti Bhava more. The dancer concluded with a kuntalwali Thailana.

After the performance, artists and audience played with colors.