Anupama Devi is a disciple of Dr. Mrs. Uma Rama Rao. She has trained in Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi styles of dance from the age of nine. She has performed widely all over India and abroad, giving more than 150 dance performances, under the banners of the Department of Culture, A.P., South Indian Cultural Association, Hyderabad, The Music Academy, Madras, the Spirit of Unity Concerts for National Integration, Natyanjali Festival, Chidambaram, and others. Recently she toured Sweden, Germany, London, U.SA. and Canada, giving performances at the Uppsala University, the World Buddhist Conference, Sweden, the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, London, the British Museum, London, the Meenakshi Temple, Houston, the Venkateshwara Temple, Pittsburgh, the Hindu Temple Society, Toronto, etc. She was invited abroad by Dr. R. Nagaswamy, V. C., Kancheepuram University, under the auspices of I.N.T.A.C.H. (Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage). Anupama Devi is also a Sangeet Vishaarad and an All India Scholar- ship holder from the Department of Human Resource Development. She has choreographed inaugural dance features for the Hyderabad Festival of Dance and Music 1994 and The Arts and Crafts Festival of Madhapur. She has appeared on the National Network along with her Guru in the Kuchipudi section of the series "Dances of India" by Smt. Kanak Rele; she has also appeared on the local network for Dashahra Celebrations.
Over the ages great composers, musicians, artists and writers have embellished our history. This land has seen great saints and philosophers who have given us definite schools of thought and made India into One of the greatest seats of learning. Waves of spirituality, religiosity and devotion have always swept across our land bringing with them a host of new ideas, beliefs, faith and knowledge.
The Bhakti movement was one such mammoth wave in our huge cultural ocean. This movement which worshipped Lord Vishnu as the supreme Godhead gave us the greatest Vaggeyakars like Annamayya, Kshetrayya, Narayana Tirtha, Ramadas and others in the south, Sant Tulasi Das Sur Das, Meera Bai, Tukaram and others in the north' perhaps the greatest being Jayadeva of the Gita Govindam,.
For centuries artists have drawn inspiration from the songs of these great composers and many a great artist has performed them successfully. Heightening their lyrical impact even further by mellifluous singing and lucid Abhinaya. . The study of the arts today has become a very specialised field. Even years of extensive learning and research can give us but an inkling of the depths ef our great art forms. Several institutions have come up providing formal training and giving recognised degrees.
I have trained in one such institution for five years, the Telugu University in Hyderabad. During the course of my study for my Bachelor's and Master's Degrees in dance. I have had to refer to several' books and great works. We had to study in depth several great Vaggeyakars, but Kshetrayya's padams caught my attention more than anyone' else's work, because of their great possibilities for the abhinaya element of Indian dance.
While doing a project on Kshetrayya for my Masters degree I realised something which was at the back of my mind for quite some time. Over the decades several writers have given us a lot of information regarding the life histories, work analyses and critical appreciations of most of the Vaggeyakars in English and the Indian regional languages. There have been many good hooks on the works of Kshetrayya, regarding the literary aspects, and the musical viewpoint, by several scholars of literature and music I wanted to bring out something which would present the view- point of a dancer and highlight Kshetrayya's exquisite use of the Naayika-Naayaka Prakarana and Shringara Rasa.
It was this aspect that put the seed of an idea in my mind. Why not tabulate all the information I could gather on Kshetrayya in the English and Telugu languages, and put it between the covers of a single book so that it could be used to some extent as a textbook for young students of dance who were as yet unaware of how to collect information regarding Kshetreyya's life, his work, style, and a general critical appreciation of his padams?
I desired to select a few padams of Kshetrayya relating to the Ashthavidha naayikaavasthas, Purusha Viraha, pangs of separation experienced by a man and the behaviour of a sakhi (that is, a friend of the heroine) and try to build around these padams a scenario for Abhinaya which is by no means perfect, but which can set the imagination of dancers going and can in turn urge them to add to it some more ideas of their own to perform it in an even better way.
My interpretation of the padam and my building of a suitable atmosphere for its presentation might inspire the reader, and in this way bringing to life the words of the pada in front of us might prove to be an enjoyable and serious exercise for our imagination and our capacity to convey sthaayi and sanchaari bhaavas through effective abhinaya.
I make no claim whatsoever that this is a completely original or scholarly work. As far as the life history and critical appreciation of Kshetrayya's work is concerned I have only gathered. tabulated and presented systematically information provided by several eminent scholars in English and Telugu. But what is original about the work is an attempt to depict Abhinaya for the padam on paper. I do not say that my interpretation is the only one which is correct. No two minds think alike. There might be a hundred other better ways to present the very same padam. Mine is one of them. That is why I have given general body postures, expressions and built an atmosphere, but have not given, in any padam, definite mudras or any footwork or method of presentation. That is something the dancers must formulate themselves, depending on their styles.
I hope you will enjoy reading this book as much as I have enjoyed writing it, and if it provides some knowledge I will consider my efforts to have amply fructified.
Contents
For privacy concerns, please view our Privacy Policy
Send as free online greeting card
Email a Friend
Manage Wishlist