An ode to gurus

Tatvamasi, a Kathak institute, celebrated its annual day on Saturday. Kathak danseuse Mitha Vinay dedicated the programme as an offering to her gurus Murali Mohan and Nandini Mehta.

The celebrations started with an invocation to goddess Saraswati by the students of Tatvamasi and the performing arts continued with a technical piece in Teentaal.

The rest of the items were performed by Mitha Vinay.

Teen Taal is a 16 beats time cycle of pure dance, here, one gets to see the technical aspects of Kathak like "footwork and chakkars" weaved in small compositions like Tripalli, Tihaai, Tukdaa, Baant, and so on.

This piece is in Raag Saraswati and is set to Teen Taal.

This has been choreographed by Maulik Shah and Ishira Parikh.

Mitha entranced with exquisite abhinaya in Ashtapadi: "Chandana Charchita Neela Kalebara Peeta Vasana Vanamali" taken from the Jayadeva's Geeta Govinda.

This is an abhinaya performance where Radha is awaiting Krishna's company.

But then, she realises and is very upset that Krishna, who had promised to meet her that evening, has forgotten the promise to romance with the other gopika strees. Meanwhile, Radha's sakhi comes and asks her about Krishna.

Sakhi then explains Radha, how delighted Krishna is romancing with not one or two but many Gopikas. This piece is in Raag Shyamala Kauns set to Bhajan Taal and is choreographed by Nandini K Mehta.

Later she performed on Sargam Tarana, which is a composition in Hindustani classical music in which certain words and syllables like 'tadeem' 'dheerena' 'yalali', etc are used and is based on Persian and Arabic phonemes.

These are rendered in Madhya laya or Drut laya. In Kathak, Tarana is considered as a technical piece and at most of the times, it is presented as a final item.

This Tarana is in Raag Bhageshree and it is set to Jhap Taal. It is choreographed by Rani Khanam.

This was followed by Hindustani Classical vocal by Lalitha Ramesh, disciple of Vidushi Lalith J Rao of Agra- Atrauli Gharana.

She mellifluously rendered Raag Puriyadhanashree, in a Bada Khyal - Bal Bal Jaau, set to dheema Ektaal Drut- Mushkil Karo Aasaan Khwaja - set to Drut Teen Taal Raag Shaam Kalyan, Chota Khyal- Kese Karu Rakho Jiya- set to Teentaal Drut- Sawana Ki Saanj- set to Teen Taal Meera BhajanIn Raag Malika- Tilak Aamod, Basanth, Shudh Sarang, and Bhageshree -set to Bhajan Taal.

Harish Chandra Prasad, Founder and Chief Mentor, Malaxmi Group graced the occasion as chief guest.