Dance Review - Sacred Angkor by Roshni Pillay

Written by Seema Harikumar,  professional Bharathanatyam Dance Artiste with Apsaras Arts Dance Company, Singapore, this review of Sacred Angkor by Roshni Pillay, first appeared in the Apsaras Arts blog on 23rd August.

With Seema's kind permission, we reproduce it here for us to all share in the wonderful description of this production and appreciate Roshni's flawless performance and talent.

Roshni Pillay Kesavan is one of the SIFAS Alumni's senior-most artistes, who in spite of being a full-time professional, still pursues her passion and talent for dance with such distinction.

 

Dance Review - Sacred Angkor by Roshni Pillay

 

 

 Sacred Angkor by Roshni Pillai featuring Neewin Hershall

 

 

Sacred Angkor

 

The grandeur of ancient Cambodia is most beautifully experienced at Angkor Wat, originally named Vrah Vishnulok - the sacred abode of Vishnu. Sacred Angkor brings to life the stories behind the bas-relief carvings at Angkor Wat, through the dramatic Indian classical dance form of Bharathanatyam. Conceptualised by Roshni Pillay Kesavan who performed with Neewin Hershall with vocal accompaniment by U Nandakumar.

 
Performed at the LaSalle College of the Arts, Saturday 4 August 2012, 8pm

 

Review

A majestic yet soothing voice broke the silence in the dark theatre at the LaSalle College of the Arts, which was designed to draw an intimate familiarity between the artistes and the audience. The narrators had begun their tale of Angkor Wat, with some very apt visuals taken from the temple grounds themselves to give the audience a dimension to travel to this sacred place of worship.

 

The story of the Samudra Manthan (Churning of the Milky Ocean) was indeed a choice first item considering that it was the very first item that was presented to the Gods by Bharatha muni to inaugurate his Natyasastra. In respect to Angkor Wat, the magnificence of Vishnu in his koorma avatara could not have been better captured than through its visual representation of this story.

 
The scene had been set for the audience to experience the stories of the Sacred Angkor.

 
Then came the centrepiece of the production- the varnam. The artistes walked into every new light cue with a new sanchari, very effortlessly shifting roles from Rama to Sita, Lakshmana to Soorpanaka, Hanuman to Ravana and so on. Roshni's years of experience and the depth into which she dwelled for 'Baavayaami' showed up through her agility in shedding her previous sanchari role and walking straight into the next with a whole new aangika abhinaya. Neewin very cleverly injected drama into his characterisation of Soorpanaka, leading the audience to experience a moment of hasya as he depicted the various deviant acts of the ill-fated demoness before she got her nose severed by Lakshmana.

 

 

Throughout the production, every single one of the musicians accompanied the artistes competently and added just the right amount of embellishment with subtlety and perfection. The audience was reminded that the pinnacle of the production was drawing near, when vocalist Nandakumar rendered the Amirthavarshini raaga with such beauty and precision that he evoked a thunderous applause which fell like rain in that auditorium.

Our protagonists concluded the rasikas' journey that evening with an upbeat thillana, where we experienced moments of outbursts in energy, immaculate coordination and technical perfection that never fell below par. A very clever interplay between the deft fingers of the mridangist and the nimble-footed dancers swept a murmur of "sabaash" across the audience.

The artistes took their leave from us with a very pensive mangalam in Revathi raaga on the magnificence of Lord Vishnu. The performance had reinstated how rich an artform Bharathanatyam was, without the need for anything gimmicky and kept in its true sacred form, to relay messages that transcend space and time.


As the audience flocked their way to congratulate the artistes and thank them for such an artistic treat, both visual and aural, I could not stop thinking of how aptly Shakespeare had summed up what I thought of this production in two of his very famous lines:
"What's in a name? That which we call a rose

By any other name would smell as sweet."

The margam that which we saw so beautifully unfold in "Sacred Angkor" would have left just as sweet an aftertaste, if not sweeter, in the audience's mind even if it had gone by any one of Vishnu's names.


- Seema Hari Kumar, Singapore, 2012