Nrithyrpanam, the fifth annual dance event and a tribute to one of the country’s pioneering composers in Carnatic music, Mahakavi Oottukkadu Venkata Subbaiyer, is helmed by Kuchipudi performer and patron Lakshmi Shankar and her organisation, Nruthyadeekshalaya: The Gateway to Kuchipudi. Venkata Subbaiyer was believed to be equally proficient in Tamil and Sanskrit, as well as, the master of song, rhythm, metre, poetry, dance, theatre, epics, mythology, cultural history, and geography. The event will take place on Saturday, October 29, at 6 pm at Ravindra Bharati in Saifabad, Hyderabad. Dr Vedantam Ramalinga Sastry, who received awards from the Kalarathna and Central Sangeetha Natak Academies and serves as the principal of the Indian languages university named, Potti Sree Ramulu Telugu University will also be present at the event. Sri Mamidi Harikrishna, Director of the Department of Language and Culture, Government of Telangana, Kalasri Dr Ramadevi, Faculty at the University of Silicon Andhra, USA, and DrSathyapriya Ramana, director at Narthanashala, Chennai are also invited to the programme as special guests.
We spoke with Suri Venkata Krishna Vara Prasad Deekshitulu who will be playing the nattuvangam and directing a few dance performances. “This is our fifth annual day and reaching this stage is like a milestone. This year, we chose to do the entire performance on Mahakavi Oottukkadu Venkata Subbaiyer Garu where all the songs are his writings. Hence we’re presenting a conceptualised performance as a tribute to the great writer,” he says. He shares his thoughts on the costumes worn at each performance. The team decides the colour of the costumes when they start rehearsing. Venkat says that before the rehearsals, they look for the desired fabric before stitching the garments. In the process, he ensures that members wear a similar coloured ensemble so everyone feels a part of the team.
He tells us that they experiment with the costumes by requesting the tailor to sew them in a different way each time they choose a new colour. “Like the previous time, we asked him to put a velcro rather than hooks for frills,” he adds. Velcro has replaced hooks in their dance costumes because it gives more comfort while also saving time. “It saves time when we wear the costume, especially when we are in a hurry or when we have to change costumes in between two songs,” he adds. There are 20 artists for the event, which will last about three hours. We asked Venkat to tell us a bit about the training of the team of dancers for each performance. “For each performance, Nruthyadeekshalaya never compromises with perfection. There will be daily classes whenever there is a performance, especially for annual day events we have daily classes for about two months. Our guru spends one or two weeks teaching us the steps for the whole song. After that, she adds corrections around rhythm, expressions, aesthetics etc and this goes on for more than a month. This way, we get everything just right,” he shares.
At Ravindra Bharati in Saifabad on October 29 at 6 pm.
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