CHENNAI: For Lasya Mavillapalli, dance comes naturally. The daughter and disciple of Narasimhachari and Vasanthalakshmi (Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi dancers) practices both dance forms. An alumna of The School KFI, she will be performing Simhanandini (sketching the figure of a lion with her feet) on the first day of Satkriya, a fund-raiser to aid the relocation of the school from Adyar to Thazhambur. “My association with KFI began when I was 5. I have danced my way through school...quite literally (laughs)! I was always allowed to be just me and I’ve come to realise that it is really the best of me. I owe a lot of who I am today to this institution,” she smiles. Lasya talks to us about growing up in a dance environment, performing abroad and her Simhanandini. Excerpts follow:
How has your dance journey been, growing under illustrious parents?
In my house, we eat, breathe and live dance! Dance is everything I know and love. It has always been mainstream for me, all else was extra-curricular! In dance class, while learning, I see my parents only as my gurus. I am just another student there.
Are classical dances perceived differently in India and abroad?
The world is in love with India. Anything to do with India is held in high regard abroad. During our interactions with multi-cultural audiences the world over, we have felt great pride in representing our arts, traditions and culture. While answering their questions, I realised how it is seamlessly ingrained in our ethos, living and thinking. When we perform in other countries, we also tend to learn more and more about our own traditions and cultures.
As a dancer do you like to stick to mythological stories or explore contemporary themes?
Like an interior designer who can experiment in a million ways within the frame work of the four walls of a house, I would create a third group for myself and fall into the category where one could explore the infinite creative possibilities, all within an acceptable framework.
In your choreography, what kind of story would you like to tell?
I would like to tell a story that stirs something deep within me. I should feel the need to share it with others what I have experienced. My father would always say, any choreography must offer something to everyone in the audience — be it a scholar or the uninitiated. Every single person in the audience should find something worthy to ‘take home’ from this experience. If that connection is absent, then it would be a failed piece of choreography.
Tell us about Simhanandini.
My mother first performed it in 1981 and since then she has been researching on it. Simhanandini is a ritualistic dance-tradition of the temples of South India. In this dance, the dancer sketches the figure of the lion with her feet, the Simhavahanam or the vehicle of goddess Durga, while dancing on a white cloth spread over red coloured powder. This is believed to have been done to the challenging Simhanandana tala in which one single avarta (rhythmic) cycle takes 128 aksharas or beats.
The actual drawing of the lion happens in one rhythmic cycle lasting just two minutes where different padabhedas (foot positions) and variations of tempo are used to sketch the different parts of the lion. But there is more to Simhanandini than just the ‘lion drawing’. We call this ‘edutainment’— while the drawing takes just two minutes, the first half tells the rest of the story.
Tell us about your performance for Satkriya.
I will be performing on the first day of the festival. As an auspicious beginning, there will be a short invocation to lord Ganesha. After this, I have requested my mother to give the audience a synopsis of the technicalities involved in the presentation of Simhanandini. I will then perform this in 25 minutes. One of the highlights will be a live rendition of the complex Simhanandana tala by my guru along with my dance.
Lasya’s performance will be held on October 27, from 6 pm onwards at Narada Gana Sabha. For details visit:
http://theschoolkfi.org/relocation/satkriya