Bharathanatyam festival on relationships

Kudos to Narada Gana Sabha Natyarangam for organising a dance festival showcasing dance forms through specific themes, every year.

This thematic dance festival serves the twin purpose of providing a platform for talented youngsters and simultaneously creating awareness among the audience, relating to various aspects of dance appreciation.

The inter-disciplinary approach through this cultural fiesta brings together dancers, scholars, composers, artists, musicians, poets and writers, including Harikatha exponents.

The platform provides for experimentation and exploration of new horizons in dance forms.

This year Natyarangam, in its pursuit, has come back with another thematic Bharathanatyam festival on relationships (Bhandava Bharatham).

We are aware of our holistic approach in relationships, wherein human beings are motivated to live in harmony with nature, their family and the outside world.

Time-tested principles in building and sustaining relationships all round are revealed in scriptures like the Bhagavad Gita and other literary works such as the Thirukkural.

This festival certainly explored the relationship in the past and present, through Bharathanatyam, performed by a duo on each day. Every presentation highlighted the underlying principles to nurture relationships, through myths, legends and history.

The step-by-step approach to the ultimate realisation that the self, is all and all contained within oneself. The festival covered a gamut of relationships, the bond which exists between a guru and shishya, man and nature, man and women, relationships at home, bonding between friends, and so on.

Dr Sudha Seshaiyan, breathed life and emotion in her introductory speech and brought out the fact that Sakhyam is a relationship that defies description.

It is the friendship transcending age, gender, status, position, wealth and all other worldly parameters. Dr Sudha was emphatic when she said, “It is a relationship that would offer support in times of need and also act as a diving board for growth.”

We applaud the artists, C V Chandrasekar and Sibi Sundaram (guru, shishya), Renjith and Vigna (Prakriti – Manushya), Gayatri and V Balagurunathan (stree – purusha), Sreelatha and Athena Madhu (griha baandhavyam), Uma N a m b u d r i p a d Sathayanarayanan and Lakshmi Parthasarathy Athreya (sakhyam) , Praveen Kumar and Aishwarya Nityananda (loka baandhavyam), Pavithra Srinivasan and S Gopukiran (atma bandhutvam and parama baandhavyam) who brought out the nuances of the dances in an interesting form, revealing the insights into the characters, chosen in this festival.