Diwali is the festival of colours and lights. And the brightness did spread into my dance performances too. I was lucky enough to perform at a beautiful temple in Brentford on the day of Annakutta & Vikrama New Year ... a day that is important to Gujaratis.
This day is celebrated with great pomp and show by preparing 108 delicacies and performing pujas. The organisers of the temple welcomed me to perform on this joyous occasion. Since this day is mainly celebrated in honour of Devi or Goddess of wealth and prosperity, I took Shakti or Devi as the theme for the show.
Goddess Parvati Pose
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Like all performances one cannot begin without seeking the blessings of Lord Ganpathy, I performed to a small slokam at the beginnings and continued by performing Manjukeshi , choreographed by my
Guru Geeta Radhakrishna. This is a beautiful song describing Sankaracharya's krithi on Devi Parvati - beauty,valour and enigma. The adavus involve many intricately woven steps, like small jasmine buds tied together to make one big garland. I always loved this piece since it is extremely slow paced on the adavus but picks up from the Abhinaya portion all the way to theermanam (concluding part of a dance item).
My final performance was one of my favorites Soudamini and Sudati - two dance items named after the seven Apsaras( celestial beauties) mentioned in Hindu mythology. This dance is set in Shivranjini and Sreeragam , two raagas that instantly get the rasika/ audience and indeed they connected with the happiness and joy that the raagas bring out of me.
Nritta Swara Manjari was initially choreographed by teacher to string all the adavus and make the learning process more pleasurable yet a memorable one but then gave way to add Abhinaya as part of it so as to open up the potential of dancers like me.
I admire her intelligence and forward thinking !!! This has helped me remember my adavus and dance items all at one go. Hats off to my Guru for making me a fine dancer.
To know more on Mohiniattam and the beauty of it please visit ww.mohiniattam.com for more information.
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