Cleveland Thyagaraja Aradhana – 2011 - Ramayana Series

 

This is the 10^th consecutive year that I am attending the Cleveland Tyaragaraja Aradhana . The experience never fails to relax and invigorate me.  Being whisked away from ‘life’ to this place where there is nothing else to do but live and breathe music and dance for days, is my annual therapy.

This year was special because of the abundance of dance.  Specifically, the rAmAyaNA series presented in 5 parts with each part entrusted to a different set of experienced choreographers and renowned musicians, a dream orchestra to give life to the music and a suite of vibrant dancers to give form to it.  There was no way I was going to miss this.

Took an extra day off to catch the first three kANdams(roughly translates to episodes) live. I saw the fourth online and missed the fifth (Lavanya Ananth was performing in Chicago at the same time).  Bothers me that I could not see all five – but then again, it could be worse – I might not have seen any of it! After watching them, and photographing them, I felt compelled to put some thoughts together.  This rather long post is not meant to be a review – just my thoughts and musings based on my experience as dancer, choreographer-director, musician, photographer, writer, artist and above all, a rasika – audience member and enthusiast.  It is very much personal, subjective and based entirely on my individual taste, perceptions and of course prejudices. 

First of all, The Cleveland Aradhana Committee needs to be commended for commissioning this mammoth project.  It must have required an enormous amount of coordination and effort to keep the groups focused on the task at hand, monitor progress, keep up timelines and ensure good quality.  With the sheer number of people involved, the potential to have it get out of hand and go completely haphazard, I think, was pretty high.  But that did not happen. Overall, the production was a largely successful one.  My sincere thanks to them for creating this in the first place.

A few overall comments before we go on a kANdam-by-kANdam journey.

What did I like?

1.       The energy of the dancers was infectious and unbelievably consistent through all the performances – not to mention their high standards of execution.  Their commitment was evident from the moment they stepped on stage – every single one of them.  From impromptu smiles that came from within to that involuntary tilt of the head when the vocalist sang a moving sangati, the apparent involvement from the entire cast seemed genuine.  This could not have been easy at all – keeping up the energy for consecutive day performances with not much of a break and completely different choreographies, is a pretty tough feat.  Yet, it was done with practiced ease.  They played their parts with no apparent regard to their stature/hierarchy. A senior dancer was part of 4 dancers in a nritta sequence and a relatively ‘new’ dancer was cast in a prominent role in one kANdam and then the roles were changed in another kANdam. That helped to keep each kANdam ‘fresh’. If there were tensions involved, none of it showed on stage.  Extremely well done. Kudos.

2.       The BRILLIANT orchestra(s): What would I not give to perform with such a group of stellar musicians!!  For the dancers, seriously, this was an opportunity of a lifetime. What I noticed was that there seemed to be NO attempt, conscious or unconscious, on the part of the musicians – every single one of them an accomplished performer, used to being soloists and/or prominent accompanists – to upstage the dance.  Being part of an orchestra for Bharatanatyam is often seen as something that an individual wanting to become a ‘serious’ Carnatic concert musician should not be dabbling in.  I have been told multiple times -“avar danceku padarathu illai” OR “vAsikkaradhu illai” [He does not sing/play for dance] without any substantial reasoning behind it.  Never did get it.  And yet here we had a set of established concert musicians weaving their magic so that the dancers and choreographers could bring an epic to life.  Providing good musical accompaniment for dance is a substantial challenge – quite different from the challenge of performing a kutcheri.  In some ways this can be seen as ‘restricting’ since the musician “cannot give complete free reign to his/her creativity”.  They might need to stick to some sangatis and number of repetitions etc – particularly if the dancer is not very experienced or is not a musician himself/herself.  But on the other hand, it puts the focus on the meaning of the lyrics, the mood of the music and the visualization aspect.  I believe that this experience can broaden the creative horizons of the musician. Moreover, a good musician can also push the dancer to higher levels of involvement and expression. It is also a test to the musicians’ sense of humility and ability to work in a team where the center stage is NOT necessarily theirs to occupy.  The notes and beats that they produce are absolutely vital - there would be no life in the dance without them.  Good music is 50% of a successful dance performance.  It is an equal partnership.

This phenomenon could also be a Cleveland special though I believe T. M. Krishna and Bombay Jayashree have produced some wonderful performances with Leela Samson and Priyadarshini Govind.   I completely understand that this cannot be the norm – the concert musicians have their own music careers to hone and with all the rehearsals needed for dance, this cannot be done all the time.  Only some special projects can be done this way. But this trend of bridging the gap between the concert music and the classical dance worlds is certainly heartening.  It also emphasizes the need for good quality music for presenting a good quality dance performance.  Overall, the orchestra took my breath away – over and over.

3.       The idea of involving the children living in North America to do the research and coming up with the scripts for the kANdams – certainly a stroke of genius and a very welcome one.  The potential of coming up with some different ideas for portrayal is/was pretty high.  Theoretically.  The children spoke very sincerely at the beginning of each episode and I wanted to hear more.  I was curious to know more about their process of internalizing and coming up with the script. But I think the idea was taken to only half of its potential.  More on this later. But as an idea, it was really a brilliant one.

4.       Sudha Seshayyan’s vyAkyAnam [discourse] before each kANdam: - As Cleveland Balu said, there could be an entire evening’s presentation with JUST her talking about the rAmAyaNa.  I would totally attend that. I thoroughly enjoyed her presentation.  Keeping her Tamizh/Sanskrit quotes to the minimum and speaking largely in English with appropriate words, painting pictures of the characters in broad strokes, adding the right touch of humour - this, to me, was the perfect prelude.  The talk served to usher the audience into the world of the ramAyaNa – gently coaxing them away from their current world and preparing them to see the folks on stage as characters as opposed to just dancers and in some cases, the ensuing performance exploited the introduction very effectively.

What was I less than thrilled by?

1.       After all this enormous effort involving significant amounts of financial and creative resources, the final product is a dance performance.  A product that is by and large, a visual experience.  The Waetjen auditorium at CSU was woefully mismatched to be the venue for this.  No wings, no apparent capability to manipulate lights, no dark backgrounds to set off costumes.  Nothing to create the visual magic that dance/theater requires.  Even a simple blackout seemed difficult to achieve.  Overhead lights were casting shadows on the dancers’ eyes, pushing them into dark sockets making it difficult to see their spark unless they lifted their head upwards, which is not always possible.  This can be seen pretty clearly in the photographs that I took. While photographing the production, it was hard for me to find an angle which did not have door handle or a power socket in the frame. I gave up trying after a point. The lightwood backdrop and sides did absolutely nothing for the costumes and ended up washing them out. The Main classroom auditorium at least had a dark backdrop and wings even though the lights stayed at the same level during the entire performance.  A basic trio of center spot, blackout and a full wash could have created adequate drama. [As an aside, I do want to thank the kind soul who turned off the house lights, finally, during AraNya kANdam!] Having also been on the organizing end of dance performances, I understand that auditorium rentals are expensive and the logistics of setting up the lights and manipulating them correctly during the performance are fairly difficult. It requires a LOT of preparation and experience. It is very stressful - particularly if the dancers and choreographers are not able to provide you with clear instructions about what they want and good cues for when they want changes and you don’t have a chance to see a rehearsal and take notes.

 I am sure the experienced organizers have good reasons for choosing the venues that they did – but it seemed unfortunate that all this effort was put into producing something that did not get the opportunity to shine at its best.  I have observed this every year with the Sunday evening dance performances on the first weekend in Cleveland. This year in particular, with so much focus on dance, it seemed like a pretty big miss.

2.       The script from the children:  Quite frankly, I wanted to see more of their work.  I wanted to read it and see how it translated to what I saw on stage.  This is the main twist – the factor that makes this series stand out from other rAmAyaNa productions.  However, the four kANdams that I saw were straightforward narratives of the rAmAyaNa.  Other than the slight detour of presenting Ahalya as a metaphorical stone instead of a literal one and showing the back story of Manthara in a fleeting sanchari, there was nothing reinterpreted or retold.  In fact, had I not been  explicitly told about the involvement of the children, I would have absolutely not known that anything different went into the creation of THIS particular rAmAyaNA production.  At a very simple level, the scripts that these children spent so much time and effort over could have been printed in the Aradhana Souvenir.  Or a limited edition booklet which had the scripts, notes from the composers and choreographers, rehearsal pictures etc that would need to be purchased.  The creative process could have been documented – I personally would have loved to read it.

Visually, the children could have been incorporated on stage to provide links at different points in the production.  Two children could be talking about the story in a spot light for a minute or so about the scene to follow or the one that just finished. Then they leave (or are blacked out) and the next scene begins.  If the narrative needed a fresh perspective, it could be provided in that ‘dialog’ – in a way that the audience does not have to read program notes or have an MC announce the next ‘item’.  The children become part of the production itself. There are numerous theatrical methods to achieve this rhythm at different points in the story.  For example, the opening of the bAlakANdam – the krouncha birds being killed by a hunter, inspiring the first verse of the vAlmIki rAmAyaNa – is not exactly well known. It was an unusual opening and I liked it, but for people who did not know the context, it was completely bewildering.  If, for instance, immediately after that scene finished, a spotlight downstage had come up on two children who spoke about that scene as though they were watching it happen and setup the context for the next opening – we would have a beautiful link.  30 seconds to a minute at most and this can be done with some efficient writing.   It need not even be the same children who wrote it who speak on stage – it could be others with drama/dance experience. The audience gets a small break from the dance and music – their minds are re-focused especially if the preceding scene was long and had a lot of conversation.  They get a link in English and are given a couple of pointers to look for in what comes in the next scene without pointing out every single detail exhaustively. Yes, it is an added level of co-ordination. But if planned in advance, it would have provided cohesion to the entire structure AND also incorporated the children’s work into the actual visual experience.  I believe it would have pushed an already good production to a unique, out-of-the-box one.

3.       The newly composed lyrics:  This is an extremely subjective comment based VERY heavily on my tastes and ideas of aesthetics.   I did not like the newly composed lyrics at all.  They felt amateurish to me.  When Sudha Seshayyan quoted verses out of the kamba rAmAyaNam or vAlmiki , they were so poetic and there were layers to them that a dancer could explore.  But with the lyrics in the production, it seemed like every detail was spelled out - and in fairly casual Tamizh at some points.  Interpretation scope becomes very limited in such cases and aesthetic value also lessens.  In the beginning of the Kishkinda-Sundara kANdam, there was a verse in Sanskrit followed by a verse in Hindi (Tulsidas?) . What a relief that was to hear! The difference was like night and day!  I did not understand the need for creating new lyrics.  There are umpteen versions of the rAmAyaNa to draw lyrics from. If it really becomes that important to write a couple of lines to bridge a particularly long narrative or a detail that is being skimmed through to get to the next dramatic point, then just those could have been constructed carefully to  match the rest.  Lyrics from different sources – particularly if they were written to be prose and not poetry - are difficult to adapt, tune and set to a tALa.  I get it.  Been there and done that. It is a challenge.  But the best of literary and musical resources are available here to combat that! To me, the lyrics were the weakest link in the entire production.

4.       I felt that having a ‘director’ who had the overall vision of all 5 productions and links would have helped a lot.  I understand that the 5 episodes may not be all performed always as a series in the future - they should be designed as “stand alone” productions.  So, the ‘recap’ in the beginning becomes important.   But does that section have to be present when the productions are performed in a sequence?   Can that be kept for occasions when a kANdam is performed by itself and not as part of a series? That part of the production in AraNya Kandam and Kishkinda-sundara kANdam sagged a lot - in my opinion – and that is the opening of the episode! Motifs from one kANdam could be used in the other.  For example, the end of the Kishkinda-Sundara kANdam has rAma, LakshmaNa and the monkey army in a diagonal on stage heading to the shores towards Lanka.  Now, I have no idea how the yuddha kANdam opened since I did not see it, but one way could have been with the same tableau as an opening visual and then move from there.  The rAga ‘lead’ before verses broke the rhythm of some scenes in places where there was no need to.  You need a minimal amount of time to establish a rAga – even if it’s a few notes.  A few seconds perhaps -which is a pretty long time on stage.  In the visual, in a dialog for instance, one character has ‘spoken’ in rAga1 and created a mood and the second character is waiting for the rAga2 lead to finish and the words to start. The rhythm of the visual – of the conversation – is interrupted.  Continuity issues like this typically need someone external to observe and bring to the attention of the choreographers.  When you are closely involved in a production, such details are not easily apparent.

Having a person or team who does NOT interfere with the individual choreographies but is in charge of providing overall insight and input into how the production is coming across to the audience and directing it, would make a big difference. While working intently on a production, it is very difficult to know how the audience will comprehend it. Things like checking for sagging and speeding of the narrative, gauging if a particular nritta sequence is too long  and taking away from the prevailing mood or if there is too much abhinaya going on that relies heavily on the audience knowing one particular language verse that is being sung - can be the domain of this person/team.  Things like that can be addressed early and before a premiere if you have a ‘director’.   Something like a sanity check!  Even at the premiere, 95%  of the audience is NOT going to come up to you and tell you that portions of the narrative were sagging – they might not even realize it enough to express in words.  Only another artist will and only if you ask sincerely and only if you are open to comments will it benefit you.  Might as well build in that reinforcement and self-checking technique within the production process itself!

Onto the kANdams:

1.       bAla kANdam:  Not going to repeat the krouncha bird scene again – but there were some puzzled looks at that point in the audience and I overheard a few people hanging out in the landing by the restroom discussing it after the program – they were lost as to what that was all about!   However, by and large, this was a very neat production.  The orchestra was fantastic though I would have liked the chitravina to be louder.  The Raveendran sisters were delightful.  Costuming worked for the most part – but was not that visually coherent and I do not mean ‘matching’ by that.  The lights and stage were not helping much there. The opening nritta sequence introducing Ayodhya and Dasaratha etc had some neat formations.  I enjoyed the trikAla jathi used as the vehicle to depict the training of the 4 princes by Vasishta.   Of all the trikAla jathis that were sprinkled all over the series, this was the one place where it gelled well with the narrative.   I have newfound respect for rAga AndOLika after seeing it being used to visualize the princes in Vishwamitra’s hermitage battling demons ending in the tAra sthAyi madhyamam.  Had always felt that it was a ‘soft’ rAga! Who knew! 

Among all 4 kANdams that I saw, the portion that stood apart, for me, was the portrayal of Ahalya and the dancer who embodied her – Priya Ramadoss.  The obedient wife, the woman submitting herself to the man impersonating her husband, turned into stone, elated at having been “reborn” – it was a brilliant effort.  There was something very fresh about the idea AND the portrayal – it was a good match of concept and casting.  I was debating whether I should just watch or take pictures – and I managed to do a bit of both.  Pooja Kumar as the young sIta fit the role neatly both in stature and ebullience.  Navia Natarajan as the young rAma was athletic and elegant though in the kalyANi pada varNam, the awe and wonder at having seen this wonderful maiden often translated as a “concerned” look on her face.  That brings me to the pada varNam itself.   I wondered what the intent of the production was – what was the main focus? Was it the story and characters or creation of music and dance?  Which one of these was the driving force – the main vocalist - and which one was the pakka vAdyam? I could not quite decide.  While I admire the creativity of creating a pada varNam in the context of the “first look” between rAma and sIta, the idea of having  a long drawn pada varNam with thundering  jathis  and athletic movement elaborating on what is essentially a very tender moment, did not sit well with me.  The dancers performed it very well and the choreography was very admirable, not to mention taxing.  The khamas thillana at the end was quite brilliant – I enjoyed it thoroughly.  Later, I heard a mAmi saying this at Rascals pizza house :  “andha kathiripoo colour-la mooNu pEru vandhu AdindE irundhA! Eppo mudiyumOnnu ayiduthu” [Those three people who showed up in purple costumes, they just kept dancing forever! I was wondering when they would be done].   That was extremely unfortunate.  I felt like telling the mAmi that the kathirpoo folks had a tough feat on their hands and had given it their all and created something beautiful. But I knew better than to come between a mAmi and her pizza slice.  I went back to the hotel completely content. Things had gotten off to a great start.

2.       ayodhyA kANdam:  I really liked the idea of the shabdam in the beginning– an idea that was first introduced here but,  I think, was better used in the AraNya kANdam.  Musically, the score was “old school” and it thrilled me.  tOdi, mukhAri etc flowed brilliantly from the stellar orchestra.   With modern day composers and dancers, I have noticed a trend to not choose ‘heavier’ rAgas and use scalar light rAgas because it is “easier on the audience”.  I disagree.  It is just a matter of getting the right form of the rAga for that particular situation.  Smt. Rhadha’s cameo as Manthara was the show stealer.  She lived the role. Narthaki Natraj’s Kaikeyi left me squirming a bit.  The transformation was too sudden, too dramatic and exaggerated – almost in a soap opera-esque fashion.   The dignified Kaikeyi who is a queen and warrior – I missed that.  Sangeeta Iswaran’s potential seemed under-utilized as Dasaratha.  Sangita Vasudevan as Guha had a mature dignity that I enjoyed. Costuming, I think, was a miss.  The male characters, except Dasaratha who had a crown, wore feminine costumes including the nethi chutti and jimki-mattals.  It was hard to see them as masculine characters.  They were able to maintain the ‘masculinity’ of the character to some extent with the abhinaya. But once the nritta passages hit, all bets were off.  Can’t really blame the dancers – the costume did not really make them get into character.  Having a more appropriate costume or atleast a more suggestive costume, could have helped here. I was starting to get tired of the angavastram on top of a regular dance costume to indicate a man. If wanting to go that route, the basic costume has to be a lot more neutral than the full regalia including the bullakku! In the rAmapriya pada varNam things got even more confusing with everyone  performing nritta, abhinaya and tattu mettu  in all sorts of combinations and at times ‘speaking’ as a character and at times as a narrator with no obvious transition between the two. Delineation was very blurry.  Again, the pada varNam – while being really nice as a musical piece [I would love to learn it and play it], did not work for me in the flow of the narrative and seemed like an inclusion for the sake of working a ‘margam’ into the mix.  This episode was a mixed bag with some flashes of good, coherent work amidst an overall palette that needed a lot more clarity – in script and choreography.

3.       AraNya kANdam: First thing, the stage looked a LOT better. Whew.  My camera was much happier and so was I J!  Using the shabdam for the recap was a GREAT idea – but why not take it to completion and include Bharata and the pAdukA pattabhishEkam also into that and be done?  The Bharata episode with Janaki Rangarajan (a wonderful dancer in an unfortunate, ill fitting costume) seemed redundant since the previous kANdam had already covered it and if anything, dragged a bit.  No obvious pada varNam going on which was pretty darn good.  No sudden trikAla jathis without context.  Costuming was quite coherent with the shades of red, orange and yellow working very well together.  Padmini Krishnamurthy’s rAma and Divya Nayar’s sIta were convincing.  I liked that Sumitra Subramaniam’s shUrpanakha had silver, kathakali style nails attached.  Nice attention to detail!  The “deer” jathi with Sherin was nicely done.  Yatin Agarwal as rAvaNa did a good job living the role very well though a couple of instances made me squirm. rAvaNa as the mendicant, asks sIta to step over the lakshmaN rEkha.  She explains her predicament and offers to give the bhiksha without crossing the line.  rAvaNa then says something that came across as “Do you think you can just throw the bhiksha at me and I will leap and catch it? Ummmmmm…that was odd to watch. There was something very pedestrian about the interpretation.  rAvaNa, despite his short comings, is a scholar and warrior.  He is also in the form of a holy man.  It was out of character.  Thiruchelwam as jatAyu was a major audience hit!  Jayanthi Subramaniam’s shabari stood apart in refinement and ‘smoothness” of abhinaya that no other cast member possessed.  The Dharmavati (?? – it’s been a couple of weeks and suddenly I am blanking out) viruttam that accompanied her was SUPERB. I cannot recollect whether it was Gayathri Venkataraghavan or Nisha Rajagopal who sang it.  Bhavajan Kumar made an energetic, bubbly hanumAn.  Overall, until this point, I felt that this episode held together the best.

4.       Kishkinda-Sundara kANdam:   Watching the dance program on the web did not have the same life and energy as watching live – atleast for me.   I am going to attribute the minimal involvement I felt while watching this to mostly that factor.  The recap sequence with Janaki  as rAma and Yazhini as lakshmaNa  as being recounted to hanumAn [Sangeeta Iswaran] was way too long for me and sagged like crazy and made me tune out.  A viruttam and/or a tAnam in a rAga used for a quick sketch would have been adequate instead of a varNam-ish approach.  I tuned out quite a bit during this episode – largely because I was not watching it live - and so I don’t really have much to comment other than general impressions.  The monkey scenes seemed to be way too casual and made-up.  The opening of the vAli –sugrIva fight sequence was very reminiscent of the same scene in Kalakshetra’s chUdAmaNi pradAnam.  There was a short solo sequence with Anjana Anand describing the Simhika and other demon encounters of hanumAn which relied pretty much entirely on the lyrics being understood to get the link.  The energy of the dancers was great though – even over the web, their involvement came across in leaps and bounds – pun intended.

5.       yuddha KANdam: Unfortunately I did not see this. Curious to know more if some wants to post something about it!

There were a lot of very good things about the series including the idea of creating this in the first place.  Enormous amount of effort has been put in by a lot of people and I could absolutely see that on stage.  The point of this post is to comment on what worked and what did not work – from my point of view.  As simple as that.  I still feel that the series has more potential than what I saw executed.  It was very well done – quite outstanding really. But I believe that it can be tightened and re-arranged to a much higher level of presentation that would make it really unique.

My photographs from these series are HERE