Bharata Natyam Selections
Shijith Nambiar’s Dancers & Dakshina Dance Company
Auditorium
University of the District of Columbia
Washington, DC
October 4, 2014
by George Jackson
© 2014 by George Jackson
From the late 1970s into the ‘80s the Washington dance scene experienced the so-called Spanish civil wars. Rival teachers and performers of varied Spanish dance forms settled here, had students, formed companies and competed. The number of Spanish performances exploded. Now, just a few can be found but dance from another part of the world – India - has proliferated astonishingly. A major catalyst was the Kennedy Center’s Maximum India festival in 2011. There have been additional forces at work, too. IDEA - the Indian Dance Educators Association, founded in 1995 - tries to see that the local scene stays peacefully productive. Daniel Phoenix Singh’s Dakshina organization imports top talent from India and explores how Indiadance and Western forms can interact. The Spilling Ink Project of Vijay Palaparty and Nalini Prakash, also active in Pittsburgh, focuses on two of India’s styles – Bharata Natyam and Kuchipudi. The Sivam Foundation of Dr. Potarazu sponsors performances of music and dance as well as symposia. India’s Embassy is an active presenter on its own as well as a supporter of others. Etcetera. Among the styles of Indiadance, no question but Bharata Natyam is the most popular. In all the styles, female exponents outnumber the men. Shijith Nambiar’s group from Chennai, India brought three women but also two men to its DC performance on Saturday.
Shijith Nambiar and Parvathy Menon
One of the two men was Nambiar himself, who started off with a solo that suited his supple musculature. Topless, which emphasized the scope of his stretch, he combined balancing, pulsing, pattering and other actions of the traditional movement repertory into an elegantly powerful image of a man. Nambiar’s footwork is exceptionally fast and precise. Sudden small leaps interject rhythmic surprise. Hands and arms articulate vividly. Such expressions as amusement, astonishment, enjoyment, and composure appear in his face and fade away. There was no story being conveyed in that first solo. According to the printed program, it was an exploration of the coming together of India’s music and dance. The music was spicy. Nambiar’s dancing had the texture and consistency that Bharata Natyam ought to have - pliant yet firm. Never did he transgress into the territory of the bouncy Odissi style or of Khatak’s sharper rhythms.
Subsequently, Nambiar also told tales. His more specific mime was efficient but the finest flavors emerged in that first solo when he seemed to dwell in the realm of abstract ideas and pure forms. His group for this one Washington performance consisted of three women – Sharanya Varma, Bhagya Lakshmi, Madhumanthi Banarji – and a young man – K.M. Jayakrishnan. They do much ensemble movement that is harmonious. The young man has Nambiar’s quick feet but not his proud stretch. That some of the narrative dancing was about Mahatma Gandhi wasn’t information I could read in the movement itself. Nambiar’s frequent partner, Parvathy Menon, was mentioned in the printed program but did not appear.
Opening the performance was a female quartet of Washington’s Dakshina dancers – Nithya Joseph, Valli Sanmugalingam, Medha Swaminathan and Sudha Radhakrishnan. It speaks well for local standards that in two ceremonial numbers - both alluding to Shiva – the quartet looked properly Bharata Natyam on the same bill as Nambiar’s dancers from India.