Neena Prasad impresses with her involved portrayal

Neena Prasad
| Photo Credit: S.R. RAGHUNATHAN

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When Mohiniyattam exponent Neena Prasad took the Music Academy stage for the Dance Festival, it was one of those instances when everything seems to fall into perfect rhythm.

Beginning with a cholkettu set to Chatusrajati Triputa tala in Nattakurinji raga, a composition by her singer Changanacherry Madhavan Nampoothiri, with whom Neena has been working for long, the dancer, with slow and graceful movements, executed cholkettus set to the tala of 28 counts. In the process, Neena established Mohiniyattam’s profile and technique.

She followed this up with an ode to Bhumi Devi in ‘Vasundaram’ (Bhoomistavam), based on a composition jointly worked on by the singer and Pappu Venugopala Rao, set to raga Vasantha and tala Mishra Chapu. Starting with a gopucha arrangement of words dropping syllables, ‘Vasundhara sundara dhara’, the beauty of Bhumi Devi is described, the graceful gait of this pulakita gamini, creating joy in the viewer. No wonder, such beauty and allure were so coveted by asura Hiranyaksha, that he abducted Mother Earth and hid her in the Cosmic Ocean, only to be rescued by Vishnu as Varaha, holding her safe atop his snout.

Neena Prasad
| Photo Credit:
S.R. RAGHUNATHAN

The inevitable choice for this dance form from Kerala — the pada varnam by Maharaja Swati Tirunal, ‘Sumasayaka’ in Sudha Kapi set to Rupaka tala, saw Madhavan Nampoothiri and the dancer in a superbly aligned music/dance journey, with Easwar Ramakrishnan’s violin interventions. The dancer made the interpretative part very moving — built round the sakhi’s pleading with Lord Padmanabha, informing him of the nayika’s eager wait for him, as time drags for her. She paints the picture of how she has decorated the bed chamber for the anticipated union with the Lord. The choreography showed how everything around her reminded her of the Lord. The punch in the nritta portions with nattuvangam by Aswathy Krishna, Ramesh Babu on the mridangam and the edaka played by Kalamandalam Arun Das provided a fine counterpoint to the sahitya passages.

In a progressively rising curve of involvement, the best came in the Jayadeva Ashtapadi. Featuring the three characters involved in this love poem of Radha, sakhi and Krishna, the whole presentation built up to the final union of Radha and Krishna — Neena touched new heights. ‘Mugdhe madhumathana manugata manusara radhike’, the sakhi addresses a pining Radha and tells her that Krishna is waiting for her and that she must now go to him. ‘Manjutara kunjatala keli sadanam’, portraying the scene of the lovers coming together, as shown by the dancer had a throbbing power. The performance concluded with the ashtapadi ‘Kisalaya shayana tale’.