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 2024 |
| * CR Acharyulu's zeal to learn led him to have many discussions with Devadasis of those times. He learned kondi parampara, a tradition common in temples, from them. According to it, a prominent woman among the Devadais used to perform a traditional dance dressed traditionally in a 9 yard sari, with a head band known as talapaga and holy marks on the forehead known as namalu. In their dance during Brahmotsavas, importance is given to talam: among them, notable are Simha Nandana talam, Mallikamoda talam, Lakshmi talam. In order to understand all about Simha Nandana, Guruji studied many old books and discussed with many practitioners of traditional dance. Adi Bharatam and Nandi Bharatam, parts of the book Bharataarnavam, covered Simha Nandana natyamu. While there was no specified recorded evidence, he understood that these dance artistes were exclusively associated with temples for traditional temple dances. ('Retracing steps: CR Acharyulu (1919-1998)' by Voleti Rangamani, Nartanam, Vol XX, No: 1, Jan-March 2020) * There are 128 kriyas in Simha Nandana talam. By the time the talam is completed, the picture of a simham (lion) was completely drawn by the dancer's feet. Prior to drawing the picture, the dancer recites stotrams inside the temple. For this, Guru Acharyulu composed a keertana on Goddess Amma followed by explanation of gati bhedas. It also has karanas, sthanakas and jatis. By the time the keertana is sung, the waist part of the picture simham gets drawn. Later, during the Simha Nandana talam, the remaining parts of the picture gets drawn. Guruji continued his efforts to improve Simhanandini in order to make chitra naatyalu of the temples feasible anywhere in the world and not limit them to a few. After many trials, he finalized a way to perform them on stage and display to the audience the picture made during the dance right before them. ('Retracing steps: CR Acharyulu (1919-1998)' by Voleti Rangamani, Nartanam, Vol XX, No: 1, Jan-March 2020) * A jodi or tabla pair comprises dayan, the righthand treble drum generally made of shisham or neem wood sourced from Amroha in Uttar Pradesh and areas around Delhi and Kolkata, and bayan, the lefthand bass drum made of either copper, brass or steel. Both rest on tough cotton rings called chumbal. The drum tops or poodi are made of goat hide and remain covered with gaadi or cloth covers when the instrument is not in use. While bayans come in varied sizes, the dayan's size determines its pitch. For left-handed tabla players, the dayan and bayan are interchanged but are addressed by the same terms. ('From skin to sonority' by Krishnaraj Iyengar, NCPA Onstage, Feb 2024) * Senior tabla-maker Narendra Wadekar explains each step involved in crafting the instrument at his Mumbai workshop. Sheets of stiff goat hide are soaked in water for around half an hour to soften them. A thin layer for the 'kinaar', the poodi's outer ring, and a slightly thicker one for the centre are cut and stitched together to form the first stage of the poodi. Forty-eight holes or ghar for the dayan and 64 for the bayan are made at the edges along the poodi's circumference, through which thin layers of soaked buffalo hide straps (called maalu in Marathi) are passed and stitched to the poodi. These will later become the intricate gajra that holds the poodi in place. Smaller triangular pieces of hide are fitted underneath the poodis for extra strength. Two dayan and bayan pieces, on which the unfinished poodi are fit, are then tied together with cotton ropes for four days and exposed to sunlight to settle the poodi over the body. The pieces are then untied, the inner triangular sheets chopped to a smaller size and thick buffalo hide straps called baddi are passed through each ghar. These run vertically along both the dayan and the bayan to pull the membrane and retain its tautness. The foundation of the siyaahi (from the Persian siyaah or black), the small black circle in the centre of the poodi, is then prepared. Though its ingredients are a well-kept secret among most tabla-makers, they mention iron fillings as the key material. The siyaahi is a feature exclusive to South Asian percussion instruments. The soru (black circle) of the mridanga is derived from a mixture of manganese dust, boiled rice and tamarind juice or a composition of fine iron filings and boiled rice which is shaped into the form of a disc. Dark silt from a riverbank, he noted, gives it tone. In the tabla, the siyaahi takes about four hours to be made after which it is allowed to dry. With a damp cloth, the poodi is finally cleaned, polished and tuned with a hammer. At this stage, eight wooden blocks called gattha are fitted between the dayan's body and the baddi to further stretch the membrane. These are lowered and raised with a steel hammer to adjust the pitch. A smooth black stone is rubbed over the finished poodi to further open the sound. ('From skin to sonority' by Krishnaraj Iyengar, NCPA Onstage, Feb 2024) * The Kalyani daughters, Rajalakshmi and Jeevaratnam performed for the Madras Music Academy in 1931, and again in 1933. The dates of the two performances are very interesting because they are both closely connected to seminal events which occurred in the dance economy in those years. The Kalyani daughters first performed for the MMA on 15 March, 1931, just a few months after Dr Muthulakshmi Reddi had successfully introduced the first formulation of her Anti-Devadasi (Prevention of Dedication) Bill in the Madras Legislative Council. The appearance of Rajalakshmi and Jeevaratnam on a public proscenium stage in the near aftermath of Reddi's first real legislative success must have been very irksome to her, and is said to have caused her much chagrin. It must therefore have taken real courage on the part of the sisters to have braved the stage at all. So anxiety-ridden, indeed, was the whole affair that many stayed away from that performance for fear of incurring public censure. The sisters performed again under the auspices of the MMA on 1 January 1933. This must have been an even more nervous occasion for the two girls because this performance took place only some weeks after the public spat between Dr Reddi and E. Krishna Iyer, in which Iyer had accused Reddi of using a sledgehammer instead of a razor in dealing with the delicate question of the devadasis and their dance. In fact, they were dancing just three days after the MMA had taken a unanimous decision on 28 December 1932, to go directly against Reddi's agenda by promoting the dance as a secular art. ('Notes on the photograph of Rajalakshmi and Jeevaratnam, c. 1933' by Donovan Roebert in his 'Aspects of Pictorial Indian Dance History' blog, Nov 3, 2021) * The needs of the screen and audiences were something that four Jaipur gharana brothers - Sohanlal, Hiralal, Chinnilal and Radhesham - understood perfectly. Sohanlal choreographed some of the most iconic cinema dances of the 1950s and '60s on actors such as Vyjayanthimala and Waheeda Rahman. If you randomly look up any of the immortal dance songs of this era, it was likely choreographed by him. The one choreographer who stuck closest to the traditional form was Lachchu Maharaj. His work in Mahal, Mughal-e-Azam, Kala Pani and Pakeezah (he choreographed one song for the film - Thade rahiyo) always carried the delicacy of the Lucknow gharana. ('One woman's search for the Kathak dancers who were relegated to the background by Bollywood' by Malini Nair, Scroll.in, Jan 14, 2023) |
