Making Bharathanatyam a language of connectivity
Mohanapriyan Thavarajah
“I think what’s important for us is we see the resilience of the people – despite the curfew and everything people are still willing to come and see the shows,” says Aravinth Kumarasamy. The Artistic Director of Singapore’s Apsaras Arts Dance Company, he was in Colombo for ‘Parama Padam’ – the Bharathanatyam performance initially scheduled for April 2 and 3 that was abruptly cancelled due to the curfew, and staged as a one-night show at the Lionel Wendt on April 6.
Powerful:Mohanapriyan in “Parama Padam’ at the Lionel Wendt. Pix by Indika Handuwala
“There are challenges and we’ve learned during this pandemic that we need to be resilient and ready for any situation to prevail,” says Mohanapriyan Thavarajah, Principal dancer of ‘Parama Padam’.
Fresh out of rehearsal and in the midst of getting ready for opening night, all came to a halt when news of the curfew was announced but they were undeterred.
Aravinth adds, “As a youngster of 10, the first Bharathanatyam performance I watched was at the Lionel Wendt Theatre and Mohanapriyan has also watched performances here. I think even though we are generations apart we both had this dream of putting up a performance here – there is a lot of great art that has happened here and you can feel it on the stage.”
Prior to their stay in Colombo, the members of the Apsaras Arts Dance Company visited Jaffna to teach and perform.
Mohanapriyan conducted a workshop titled ‘Prayogam’ which was centred on the techniques of Bharathanatyam which was attended by 60 dance teachers from local government schools. This was followed by a solo dance by Mohanapriyan called ‘Thandav’ – a masculine form of dance performed by the Hindu God Shiva–to a 400-strong audience, some even travelling from as far as Vavuniya to see the performance.
Aravinth Kumarasamy
They performed once again at the Jaffna Cultural Centre and held workshops at the Ramanathan Academy of Fine Arts at the University of Jaffna where Mohanapriyan was able to instruct students following the degree programme in Bharatanatyam to learn a 15-minute composition connected to ‘Parama Padam’. He commended the dancers who were able to learn the entire composition in a single day before they were selected to perform it for the opening of ‘Parama Padam’ at the University’s auditorium before a packed audience.
Today, Sunday they travel to Mohanapriyan’s hometown of Batticaloa to perform at the Batticaloa Eastern University and conduct sessions based on a module he created on choreography. This was conceptualised as the current syllabus at the Universities does not offer a text book on this for students.
Aravinth shared that they intend to bring IPAC, the Indian Performing Arts Convention to the country. For the past 10 years the Company has been responsible for organising this annual 10-day convention where participants are given the opportunity to speak with and learn from leading international artists and choreographers in Singapore.
“One thing that has arisen is a unity and hopefully cultural horizons will also come together and people won’t see Bharathanatyam as just a Tamil community thing – I want people to accept it more like a language of a powerful medium that can connect people,” says Mohanapriyan.
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