Darpani observed the second edition of their Silver Jubilee year with a grand celebration of classical dances of the country. Arnab Bandyopadhyay the Artistic Director of Darpani named this event ‘Ananta- the Infinite’ after his choreographic work of the same name, which was the last production of the evening.
Ananta was performed at Satyajit Ray Auditorium of ICCR on the 9th of January The celebrations were remarkable for more reasons than one. During this pandemic year when people with dancing feet were forced to stay indoors, the event allowed them the chance to perform live.
Odissi dancer Arnab Bandopadhayay had his first Acharya, Bharatanatyam dancer cum teacher Anita Mallik inaugurated this memorable evening. Her two solo renditions- Ambika Pallavi of Adi Shankara and Krishna Anubhavam from Lalita Saharsanamam were -unintentionally- aptly summed up by Sujoy Prasad Chatterjee the Master of Ceremonies of the evening.
Chatterjee did his homework well. While making a passing remark about legendary Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra’s 95th birthday, he quoted a dance critic’s view of the great man, who invariably left the fast foot works to be rendered by his students, while he performed the acted out parts, raising his eyebrows, moulding his body movements and facial expressions to get across to the audience. However good a dancer one maybe, age catches up at some point, while at the same time age and experience equips a dancer to emote effectively. Also dancing in the prestigious evening of a school that is celebrating its 25th birthday, one must take care to use their own recorded music. Ambika Pallavi was danced to the recorded music of O.S.Arun. A group rendition of Krishna Anubhavam with Anita doing the abhinaya portions may have been better appreciated. Anita Mullik who is a talented dancer, guru and choreographer, who has trained many talented artists could perhaps have done better.
Ratikant Mohapatra the Odissi guru of the Founder Director of Darpani, Arnab Bandopadhayay, performed two abhinaya pieces. ‘Priye Charusile’ from Jayadeva’s Gita Govinda was enacted by him. It was the choreographic work of Kelucharan Mohapatra danced to the composition of Bhubaneswar Misra. Ratikant Mohapatra is an accomplished Mardala player and dance guru, besides being a talented choreographer. The second piece he performed was Sabari who was a devotee of Ram and the story centred around Sabari’s meeting with Ram after a life long wait. He was able to authentically express Sabari’s feelings.
Arnab Bandopadhyay was the third artist of the evening. He performed his signature number Ardhanariswar of Adi Shankaracharya, to a composition of Raghunath Panigrahi and choreography of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra. The concept of Ardhanariswar is a unique one. The portrayal of Shiva and Parvati as an indivisible identity existing in one body is an idea. Scholars have delved deep into it and interpretations are galore. Arnab Bandyopadhyay brought out the meaning of the union of Purusha and Prakriti in this stotram, which has layers of meaning.
Kathakali Dancer Prabal Gupta, who has emerged to be a seasoned solo dancer performed Purappad in stree vesham. A Purappad is basically an introduction to a Kathakali performance. It was a pure dance piece taught to him by his guru Sadanam Balakrishna. Prabal is in the right hands to pursue his goal. It was in raag Malika and consisted of a combination of four talas-Chembada, Triputa, Panchari and Jhampa.
His second piece was a padam Sammyam Akkonoru Uddyanam from Nalacharitam in sringara rasa, choreographed by Sadanam Balakrishnan set in rag Poorvikalyani and Chempada talam. This piece exhibited Prabal Gupta’s ease with expressional dance. It was a romantic scene in a garden. The choreographic piece by his guru has a class of its own and Prabal has imbibed it well.
Prabal Gupta specializes not only in enacting stree vesham , he is also an excellent purush vesham performer.
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The last presentation was by the senior troupe members of Darpani, The organisation celebrates it’s silver jubilee this year, and this is the second edition of the 25th-anniversary celebration.
Scripted by Sreyashi Dey, Ananta … The Infinite is based on Five elements or panchabhuta in pure odissi style.
Sandipan Ganguly’s music propelled the dance ballet to aesthetic heights. Suvadra Desai’s vocal rendition added to the beauty of the performance. The maturity of Arnab Bandyopadhyay was to be seen in his choreographic work. He has truly graduated from presenting from his guru’s work to that of his own.
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In Ananta, he has borrowed freely from the Vedas and Upanishads to make it a composite whole with both the lyricism of pure Odissi and the techniques of new movements. As all good things come to an end so did Ananta.
