When raga Bhairavi meets a Bharatanatyam motion

Mavin Khoo
| Photograph Credit score: Iyyappan

The relentless hustle and clamour that’s Margazhi in Chennai, for artistes and viewers alike, is equally potent with areas or moments of stillness and quiet immersion. It could possibly be the reassuring first touchdown on that jeeva swara of a raga in a kutcheri, an unanticipated choreographic improvisation in an oft-repeated composition, a second of internalisation in a workshop, or just a few echoing phrases from the keynote handle of a convention. Curated by Sparsha Arts Basis, led by Vidhya Subramanian, “The place the music meets the dance”, a session on musicality in dance facilitated by Mavin Khoo and Brindha Manickavasakan, was one such stilling expertise. The session carried out in Sparsha studio at Neelangarai in Chennai was part of an ongoing collection of initiatives, to engender conversations between varied classifications inside the arts.

The approaching collectively of the 2 artistes, whose craft is past introductions, was in itself a matter of anticipation. With a varnam in Sankarabharanam and an ashtapadi in Suddha Sarang as the first context of demonstration and dialogue, and fast snippets of Khamas and Bhairavi for comparability, the interplay between the dance and music within the session meandered unhurriedly, like a river that’s positive of its course.

Brindha Manickavasakan
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular Association

With just a few high quality interactions with Mavin Khoo, one will observe that he repeats sure phrases and concepts. However, every time they sound contemporary and smack in context, as does his abhinaya. In its subtlety, his abhinaya, devoid of distinctive gestures and metaphors, is new every time as a result of he’s current there, in that second, and that makes it completely alive. A number of concepts that recur in his conversations and discourses are shamanistic, ambiguity, however the phrase musicality, and the immeasurable affect that it has on his dancing, is a continuing chorus. Each phrase he spoke was effortlessly translated and demonstrated in music by Brinda.

“I usually see an urgency by way of how intelligent the choreography might be, versus stripping again and checking if we’re sitting musically in it,” Mavin shared. Talking from his private expertise, he additional defined that two points had been essential to his course of. One, turning into embodied within the raga and the voice of the musician, their aesthetic and intuitive selections, and the opposite, discovering child-like pleasure and potential in each be aware of the raga. In a forwards and backwards between dance method and musicality, he emphasised on the stylistic hastas together with the stylisation of a pedestrian emotion, bringing a couple of grip within the possession of id, that’s lived and never learnt.

Vidhya Subramanian
| Photograph Credit score:
Particular Association

Researchers Julin Brodie and Elin Lobel, of their journal on integrating somatic ideas into dance method, argue that feeling shouldn’t be at all times dependable, and what one is accustomed to, begins feeling proper. Mavinlanded precisely on the identical thought, talking about sure mannerisms in abhinaya which might be routine, that take away from precision. “There’s a temperature to it. I don’t know if it is sensible,” he mentioned. It did make sense when he demonstrated a selected and distinctive shade of sringara for each be aware of Sankarabharanam.