Report

An evening of Karanas in Bharata Nrityam 
- Natarajan Sivakumar
e-mail: siva@netapp.com 
 
 
March 23, 2007 

 
Dr Padma Subrahmanyam's disciples Radhika Shankar with her daughters Tara, Menaka and Sonia, presented a dance performance in California on March 18th. 
Tara
Radhika Shankar
This Bharata Nrityam performance focused on describing the art of 'Karanas' which is a fundamental unit in classical Indian dance. A Karana, as described in Bharata's Natya Shastra involves the simultaneous movement of the feet, hands and body. There are 108 such Karanas described in the Natya Shastra. Many of the sculptures engraved on the walls of ancient Hindu temples illustrate the Karana movements. The center piece of Radhika and Tara's performance depicted many of the 108 Karanas from the Natya Shastra.
 
Radhika's guru Padma Subrahmanyam has carried out pioneering research on the expression of Karanas in the various classical Indian dance forms. 
 
Radhika's dance style harmoniously blended the elements of Adavu (movement), Abhinaya (communication) and the Karanas in the unique style called Bharata Nrityam. In this performance, viewers were treated to an aesthetic display of Margi (techniques based on Natya Shastra) along with the Desi (regional) styles prevalent in various regions in India.
 
Another special number was Jatayu Moksha performed by Tara with Tchaikovsky’s symphony as background music. Originally, an idea of Padma Subrahmanyam, who performed it several years ago, Tara did it flawlessly and received applause for that.
 
Bharathiyar's "Theeraatha vilaiyattup pillai" brought the entire family (Radhika, Tara, Menaka and Sonia) on the stage performing as Yasodha, Yadhava ladies and Krishna and delighted the audience.
 
It was an evening, when the audience forgot their usual chores and enjoyed the artistic bliss.