The world needs artists

Seeing the colourful lights flashing at the Sports Desk area beckoning the Hari Raya Puasa celebration, I ask myself what the purpose of the light display is. The simple answer is it's the artistic expression of the desk staff. So art is still alive and a necessity to spice up our lives.

*: A transcendental evening

*: A transcendental evening

A transcendental evening

Review by R. Sittamparam

We were ending this hot Saturday evening (May 30), at the PJ Civic Centre auditorium to watch Varnanjali 2015, a presentation of Bharatanatyam and Kutchipudi Indian classical dances.
 Two dance gurus, Kuala Lumpur based Chandramogan Ramasamy and Johor Baru based Sri Ajith Bhaskaran Dass had pooled their resources to woo the rapidly dwindling fine arts  audience in Kuala Lumpur to immerse themselves in an evening of spiritual transcendence.
Guru Ajith and his Suvarna Fine Arts academy dance team are familiar to us given their once or twice yearly performances in Kuala Lumpur and their year-end grand finale in Johor Baru. But this was the first time we were seeing Guru Chandramogan and students of Sri Nandhigeswar Dance Academy and performing Kutchipudi at that.
The towering, heavy set Chandramogan is a natural performer which was clear in his highly dramatic rendition of the popular Mahishasura Mardini Strotam number that sent shivers down our spines seeing the gory finale.
Chandramogan takes to the stage as fish to water. He passionately embraces the stage space with his measured movements, artistic personality and the theatrical flamboyance oozing from his mastery in the Andhra Pradesh originated Kutchipudi dance form. He also manages to lift his students’ back-up performance with his magnetic presence. This indeed is a guru’s master touch.
Ajith’s expertise in choreography, music arrangement and stage craft was evident in the show and his own dedicated team of musicians including talented India based singer, Nandakumar Unnikrishnan provided mesmerising accompaniment to the dancers. They effortlessly  reverted between delivering flawless renditions of classical Bharatanatyam tunes to the folksy Kuchipudi rhythms.
The lawyer turned international dancer who is indeed the quintessential dance guru, has led his highly trained troupe of senior students in numerous high profile productions throughout the country and the international arena. The troupe has a wide repertoire of dance items and musicals mostly composed, choreographed and designed by Ajith himself with assistance from senior students who are also gurus in their own right.
The Suvarna dancers displayed their signature technical brilliance in the rhythmic opening alarippu and concluding thillana, holding the audience spellbound. Ajith showed his spiritual depth in his solo performance, Alwar Kanda Kannan, a beautiful composition based on the traditional hymns of the South Indian Alwar Vaishnava movement.
The evening presentation lasted until past midnight with guest of honour Natural Resources and Environment Minister, Datuk Seri G. Palanivel and his wife glued to their seats, relishing every minute of the show.
It must have been a great transcendental relief for the embattled president of the Indian community's government flagship, the Malaysian Indian Congress who is at a critical juncture of his political life battling for the right to head the effervescent party amid harrassment by present day demons similar to Mahishasura that Guru Chandramogan playing Goddess Durga  decisively vanquished on stage.
For us common folks, the show gave us the chance to transcend from the rigours of the day-to-day battle with the relentless weather, rising prices, GST and our wild, raving emotional lives.