Still-frame

The renowned dancers Srikanth and Ashwathy performing at the Narada Gana Sabha about 6 months ago. 

Watch out for their next performance - not to be missed!

 

Performance space

At the end of Elliot's Beach Road - rather at its start, for the address is 1, Elliot's Beach Road - is a secluded space, born of one woman's vision: the dancer Chandralekha wanted to establish an artistic-human space within the city. She wanted artists and performers on their human scale to be juxtaposed against the eternal "elemental scale of the sea and the sky". The beach at Besant Nagar was another performance space for her, and it was appropriate that her vision took shape right next to it. 

Established in 2000, SPACES is nestled in a corner at the northern end of Besant Nagar beach. From the road, one does not see any buildings; the stone walls and the wooden gates seem to contain just some greenery within them. But there is more. Chandralekha wanted it to be known over the world as "a Performance Space - a Sacred Space - a Sun and Moon Space - a Sky and Sea Space". And so within the walls, there are a few buildings: a stage with a tiled-roof (and minimal arrangements for lights / audio), a kalari (arena) and some office-cum-residential quarters. There is also the Chandralekha archives, but I haven't had a chance to see those yet.

I'm not sure about the last 3 kinds of spaces, but SPACES is certainly a favourite with teachers / learners of kalaripayattu, and with performers who are keen to explore alternate forms and interpretations, which may not find favour with more traditional performance venues. It is also a good place to rehearse for a performance elsewhere. You will be undisturbed, there is enough elbow room to simulate what you might wish to do on an even bigger stage. And that is what the folks here are trying. No, don't worry about them, they're all okay. In fact, they are all quite superb performers. It is just that they're loosening up in a seemingly unsynchronised fashion before beginning rehearsals for their play. SPACES does that to one!

PS: If you would like to see them on stage, that's easily done. The next show of the production they were rehearsing for is on January 27 (2023) at the Narada Gana Sabha. Get your tickets by clicking this BookMyShow link. 

Bonus - you get to watch me, too :)

Narrow outlook

Yes. That is truly how Kutchery Lane opens into the North Mada Street of the Kapaleeswarar Temple. But as one gets out from this narrowest of lanes, all it takes to get into the temple is to cross the street. That small gopuram is over a door to the temple's administrative office. That door does not open for you or me, it is quite possibly an entrance for only the most privileged of the temple's staff and/or devotees.

For a long while, that was the entrance through with the temple's designated devadasi, would enter the temple. She was an integral part of the temple's rituals, and was accorded a high status in the temple's hierarchy. But over the years, the position of the devadasi was stigmatised, and there were likely enough people within the temple administration who were politicking to cut the devadasis down to size.

It was not just at this temple; all over the Madras Presidency and across India, the desire to abolish the devadasi system led to the passage of legislation such as the Madras Devadasis (Prevention of Dedication) Act in 1947. With that law in their hands, the puritan faction of the temple administrators walked out through the office door, into the Kutchery Lane, to the ex-officio residence of the last of Kapaleeswar devadasis and unceremoniously threw her out into the street. And so ended a tradition, one that gave much of today's Bharatanatyam dance, in obscurity and penury. Would it have been any different had the passage been much broader?

Peacock dance

Dusk falls at the Kapaleeswarar Temple. The temple gopuram is outlined with lights, which is not unusual. But what is unusual is the stage in front, and the dancers. 

We are back at the Mylapore Festival and on the last day of the festival, we caught a version of the mayilattam; the dance of the peacocks, the birds the place is named after!

Dance bars

All those air-conditioning units sticking out from this building seem to corroborate the claim on the board; yes, see, we indeed have air-conditioning, can't you see us all hanging out together at the A/C Bar? Although there are about 3,000 bars attached to the TASMAC outlets across the state, there are only about 600 of them that are air-conditioned. So that is certainly an attraction for patrons to visit this bar. 

But there was a time when no additional words was necessary for patrons to know what "PALS" had to offer. There were few places in the city where one could go to watch cabaret dances. Hotels such as Oceanic or Savera were at the high-end of this scale, but there were others as well, those which did not advertise their shows. Therefore, it was left to the school-boy's (or even college-goer's) imagination to visualise the dances at Pals, or Hotel Arun - the most popular names of that sector.

Today, there are no dance bars in Chennai. Oceanic's buildings have been pulled down. Savera shows no trace of ever having had dances on the premises. Hotel Arun has been built over by the Ampa Skywalk. Other bars have all had their names replaced with TASMAC authorised serial numbers. Maybe even this one does not have a name to it, for the TASMAC board just says 834. But the sign above it certainly recalls a part of Madras that has sadly disappeared, and Chennai has never ever known!

Happy Onam!

Can't call it the Onam day celebrations, because, for one, Onam is a multi-day festival and for another, this happened yesterday, the Uthradam day. Ente Keralam had put together an Onam sadya along with a performance of Ottamthullal. 

Even though it was supposed to be for the patrons of the restaurant, the performance was staged just outside it. Passing by, the traffic was thick enough for me to get more than a glimpse of the dance, even if I wasn't able to make out the lyrics. 

Happy Onam, everyone!

Girl on a horse

Contrary to what most people think, it was not PSY who invented the 'horse dance'. Very long before Gangnam Style became a global craze, many cultures around the world had been using some representation of horses as part of their folk or cultural representation. Or were they? 

In Tamil Nadu, the "Poikkal Kuthirai" (False-legged Horse) dance supposedly finds mention in Silappadhikaram, a work from the 6th (or is it 2nd?) century CE. There is another school of thought which believes it was brought to Thanjavur by the Marathas. And then there is Dr. Murugesan, Professor Emeritus of the Folklore Department of the Tamil University, Thanjavur, who claims that the Poikkal Kuthirai was created by Ramakrishna Naidu, a carpenter of Thiruvaiyaru and that when he performed on his false-legged horse, it was to the accompaniment of the kondalam instrument, performed by Marathi musicians.

Whatever its origins may be, the poikkal kuthirai is indeed a tough act to deliver. The performer is on some form of stilts, even if it is not very high. The body of the horse is constructed around the midriff and even though it is made from lightweight materials - straw, papier máchê, cloth - it still needs to be carried around and manoeuvred during the performance. These girls are coming off after nearly an hour's dancing during the Republic Day parade - they are just waiting to get off the saddle! 

Energetic music

Even with an extremely limited knowledge about music and its forms, I would still argue that a definition of folk music must be something approximating a spontaneous harmony of related noises which would be completely jarring by themselves. I like that, because it is broad enough to include any set of noises that makes sense (even if only to a few people) and by forewarning the listener to the possibility of discordant notes, forces her to appreciate harmony when it occurs. Most of all, it is the invitation it holds out to anyone who is willing to join in, which brings out the true folksiness. No compositions, not too much of practice, no set-pieces, the rythyms unfold in some swarm-intelligence-like fashion, each performer taking his cue from the next, twisting and turning, volume and tempo changing with the mood of the performers, or more likely the enthusiasm of the audience.

Paraiyattam is one of the oldest form of music/dance out of Tamil Nadu; spontanity is a given; the original instrument, the parai was very basic; a bit of cowhide stretched over a circular wooden frame. Supposedly, only neem wood is to be used in its making and the frame shouldn't have more than three pieces. Two wooden sticks, one short and thick, the other - preferably of bamboo - long and thin are used to beat on the parai, which is normally hung over the shoulder. It may have originated as a noise-making mechanism used by village night-watchmen to scare wild animals away from fields; but over the centuries the instrument has evolved even while the music remains pretty much the same.

If it is during festival times, even the folks of the city would be tempted to join in to the drum beats - as seen from this picture of a paraiyattam street performance during the Chennai Sangamam!

Click here for a 3 minute clip of the stage performance; click here for a stylized rendering, in a recent hit song!

Dance competition

The poster is pretty clear, isn't it - or is it? In these days when almost every business around is going slow on hiring, why wouldn't one respond to a 'wanted' ad? No matter that it almost sounds underworld-ish in wanting 'kuthhu' (to stab) dancers rather than 'koothhu' (performance) ones. The line clarifying that it is only a competition highlights the edginess. And anyone from 14 to 60? What kind of competition is that? Oh, it is for Vasanth TV! But wait a minute, isn't there some ban on children below 16 participating in such shows?

Then, someone tells me that I'm over the hill. Koothhu is old fashioned, kuthhu is what this dance is all about. (Can't you see the models getting ready to execute that perfect round arm swing, which would end in the pointy end of the knife punching through whatever material is in its path?). And, you old fuddy-duddy, there is no ban, just some people like you overreacting to a one-off incident!

Whatever it be, it just shows that 'reality shows' like these competitions are among the easiest to produce - so hey, if I want the TRPs, I'll let everyone participate on TV!

Dancing on bottles

Suresh Reddy is a record holder (Limca Book of Records) for picking out the most number of needles from a pile of sand, using just his eyelids. He didn't go for the record when he performed at a company's in-house function on Saturday, but did show how the needle-picking was done.


His karagattam was pretty good by itself, including this bit of dancing on top of 3 Coca-Cola bottles. But the best part of the show was a bit of vegetable cutting that he performed (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z4Owo2fiPpk) that did not have much to do with karagam.