The First Online Natya Sangraham was conducted successfully, thanks to the amazing Faculty, the Natyarangam Team and the Technical team.
Natya Sangraham, the Annual Dance Camp for senior dancers and Dance Teachers of Bharathanatyam, conducted by Natyarangam, Narada Gana Sabha Trust, will be held as virtual camp via zoom for three days from 29 to 31 January 2021. Nine eminent speakers from various disciplines will deliver lectures and present lecture demonstrations under the four branches of abhinaya, namely Angika, Vachika, Aharya and Satvika. Each session will have a Question , Answer segment where the participants may send in their questions to the speaker.
The keynote address will be given by Dr. Padma Subrahmanyam, who inaugurated Natyarangam twenty five years ago.
Smt Arundhathi Subramaniam – Vachika Poetry
Smt Bragha Bessel - Satvika
Smt Priyadarsini Govind - Angika
Smt Rama Vaidyanathan - Satvika
Ms Sandhya Raman - Aharya
Smt S.Sowmya - Vachika Music
Dr Sudha Seshayyan - Vachika Poetry
Shri Vaibhav Arekar - Angika
Smt Vishaka Hari - Vachika Puranas and Music
Date 29 to 31 January 2021
Time 17. 30 to 21. 00 IST (07.00 to 10. 30 USA ET)
The application forms for Natya Sangraham may be downloaded from here and the completed forms mailed to - natyarangam.ngs@gmail.com - before January 10 2021
Due to the pandemic situation, the annual dance camp organised by Natyarangam, the Dance wing of Narada Gana Sabha was held virtually for the first time. The camp is usually held in the Panduranga Temple complex at Thennangur, during the last week of January each year.
With the world seeing an unprecedented situation of severe travel restrictions, safety norms and health issues, the committee members of Natyarangam deceided to conduct the camp virtually. The applications for the camp were made available on the Natyarangam website and Face Book page the first week of January 2021. An astounding number of applications came in, with applicants from countries like Norway, Sweden, UK, USA, Australia, Singapore, UAE and India.
We were fortunate to also line up a stellar faculty for the virtual camp, and they were all stalwarts in their respective fields. The format for the camp was to have a 45 minute session of content where the Faculty member would present their topic and it would be followed by a question and answer session with the participants.
On the opening day, with the Thennangur temple as backdrop and Mangala Isai we began with a darshan of Panduranga and Rakumayee. Then Secretary of Narada Gana Sabha K.Harishankar welcomed the participants and also introduced the keynote speaker – Dr.Padma Subrahmanyam. She spoke about the importance of a hollistic approach to Bharathanatyam where all aspects of Abhinaya – Angika, Vachika, Aharya and Satvika are equally important.
This was followed by the first session on Vachika – Carnatic music by S.Sowmya, talking of the role of raga and tala in compostions used in dance repertoire. The next session was Satvika Abhinaya – by Rama Vaidyanathan, who eloquently talked of the importance of internalization of a song before trying to dance to it. Dr.Sudha Seshayyan concluded day one with her presentation on Vachika – appreciation of poetry, and said caution should be applied while interpretating poetry, since languages have changed over the centuries.
The second day of camp saw a session on Vachika Abhinaya by Vishaka Hari who in her inimitable style of music and word, talked of exploring Puranas and being creative in approaching different commentaries and translations of ancient classics. This was followed by Vaibhav Arekar’s presentation on Angika Abhinaya. He spoke of the importance of body alignment and posture while executing adavus. Wrapping up the day was Sandhya Raman talking of Aharya Abhinaya, and walking the participants through her creative process from design to performance.
The last day started with Priyadarsini Govind’s session on Angika Abhinaya, with suitable demonstration by her students Apoorva and Shwetha. An important point she made was the role of Prana or breath even in abstract movements of the body. Following this was Bragha Bessell, who explored Satvika Abhinaya. A scholarly presentation with many take aways for the participants, it was also punctuated with apt demonstrations of padams and javalis. To wrap up the virtual camp, we had a splendid session with Arundhathi Subramaniam, the poet who told dancers to “live with a poem” for sometime before working with it and also stressed that translations allow us to explore poems of various languages.
Natyarangam is very heartened to know that this virtual camp has had such a global reach and we hope that these participants will take all that they have imbibed during the camp, to further enrich their knowledge and their practice of Bharathanatyam.