Kuchipudi and Cholliyattam

South Madras i.e Chennai is quite popular in promoting classical music and dance almost through out the year.

Two such events that took place in Sep. 08, are Seminar/awards/performance of Kuchipudi dance organised by Saila Sudha, headed by Dr. Shailaja at Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan on 27 th and 28 th and the second by Kalakshethra, 'Sankara Menon Birth centenary celebrations' which had a lec-dem on 'Cholliyattam' a form of Kathakali on 23rd Sep.

This is a belated report, still would like to share because they are basically from neighbouring states.

Kuchipudi had two full day events of lec-dem, documentary, honouring of gurus etc. Evening both days had performances.

On 27th the dancer was Yamini Reddy, daughter of Radha & Raja Reddy the famous Kuchipudi dancer couple. She was young, talented and had variety. First she performed some invocatory items which had the traditional Kuchipudi touch. Then there was a ragamalika with navarasas and Yamini showed her mettle in abhinaya. The final item was a padam as is known to everyone it was in sringara rasa.

The highlight of the program was the performance of Prahalada Charithram by the artistes from the village of kuchipudi and it really had the fervour of the desi, rustic beauty in presentation.

This took place in heart of the Metro, i.e. in Bharathiya Vidya Bhavan, Mylapore, but the artistes were tireless and went probably up to 11.00 as though it is being performed in an open air stage in a village.

The second festival was Kalakshethra's from 21.09.08 to 29.09.08 being the birth anniversary of Sri. Sankara Menon, ex-director (1986-1995), which had Lec-dem in the mornings and kutcheries in the evenings.

Cholliyattam, a folk type classical dance of kerala was performed by P.V. Balakrishnan and his team from Kerala. He gave brief introduction about the dance. Cholliyattam was prior to the evolution of Kathakali, which was an offshoot of Cholliyattam. The rhythm, layam, thalam, nadai are all preset and the artiste has to follow strictly the choreography. He cannot innovate and thus the method of performing is woven perfectly. The rendering of the song is generally slow and the songs, mostly in Sanskrit with only few phrases here and there are in Malayalam. The songs depict any episode from epics like Ramayana, Mahabharatha etc.

The song selected on 23.09.08 was a story from Mahabharatha. Indra wants his son Arjuna to get the Pasupadasthram from Lord Shiva. He sends his messenger (Madali) with a chariot. Arjuna accepts Indra's call, reaches his place and gets the blessings of Indra and sets out to do penance to get Pasupadasthram from Lord Shiva. So there were 3 scenes, Messenger pleading Arjuna to visit Indira, Arjuna accepting it and reaching the celestial palace of Indira, and thirdly, Arjuna doing penance and getting 'Pasupadasthram from Lord Shiva.

The first item was 'salajjoham' set to Adathalam, kanda nadai, irattai kilai. So naturally it was very elaborate and slow.

Sri. P.V.Balakrishnan and his troop did extremely well, but, as he had already told the tempo was slow, duration long and the dance heavy. The students of Kalakshethra would have learnt new dimensions from this performance.