REMBERING RUKMANI DEEVI
My daughter recently wrote a blog on her visit to a New York village cafe to listen to Carnaticmusic So when Vasanta suggested that we go to Kalashetra to Leela Samson’s Bharat Natyamperformance I accepted with alacrity seeing the chance to write a blog on this. My knowledgeof music anddance is very rudimentary.Most of the times I can distinguish a Kalayani from aTodi., and a Kathak from a Bhatat Nayam. I was able to achieve this level of proficiency after astrenuous efforts after being the but of jokes by my family.We arrived sufficiently early to find the car park almost full.We had to leg it to a thatchedhall only to find the place jam packed. A lady kindly offered her children’s seats seeing ourcondition. We were at the back and just had view of the stage by craning our necks.A lot ofpeople were standing on the sides and the hall was over flowing The seats were rickety anduncomfortable but sylvan surroundings and ambiance were beautiful.
The dance started withan announcement giving the names of the of accompanists.When I heard Bombay Jayashree was the singer
I said to Vasanta- ‘Eh! Jayashree is singing.
’Vasanta gave me a glare and muttered ‘Keep quiet.’
Leela was dancing very gracefully and had a lot of class. After a few items I got the feelingthat while dancing was superb there seemed to be no structure to her programme. The onlytheme common in a number of items was Siva. Was she a Saivite?(unlikely given her Jewishbackground). The divine voice of Jayshree held every thing together and though unstructured,Samson’s lovely dance carried the day.We made our way back before the last item to avoid the crowds and hustle of finding ourfootwear. Rukmani’s Devi’s legacy lives on in Kalashetra in various ways but one which makesyou remember her every time you see a performance at Kalashetra is the hustle of findingor loosing your footwear at the end. We were discussing the performance and to my surprise Vasanta agreed with me. I am improving as an art critic!
Walking back to the car park I wondered the reason for the big crowds.Was it the freeperfomance? Was it Jayasree’s singing and Sampson’s dancing? Or was it Rukmani Devi’smagical Kalashetra?I thought we had a private quiet evening only to find that the ace internet reporter of the ‘Snakesin the House ‘ fame had spotted us!
Raja Ramakrishnan26-02-11
Just saw this, Appa - totally forgot that I had promised to put it up!
It was fun reading it again!
Posted by: Kamini | April 23, 2011 at 08:56 AM
Appa: Maybe you should shift things around on the blog and move the recent posts to the left side of the page where people can see it as soon as they visit your site. I realized that the Kalakshetra post was up, only by chance.Right now, one has to scroll down a bit before seeing that there is a new post. Perhaps the Recent Comments and Recent Posts columns could switch places.
Posted by: Kamini | April 23, 2011 at 09:00 AM