BENGALURU: There are many ways to express, emote, and tell a story. Some choose to put words on paper, some string poetic verses, and some paint a vivid picture through their movement. Bengaluru-based Bharatanatyam dancer Rukmini Vijayakumar and her dance company, Raadha Kalpa, are part of the latter. Her three-city tour of the ensemble dance production
The Goddess will be coming to the city at Chowdiah Memorial Hall on November 10, exploring themes of power, creation, strength, and the divine female form. “If you look at archetypes of power around the world, power is mostly held within a male form. So, here I wanted to look at how power is held within a female form. It’s more an appreciation of beauty as opposed to objectification which happens with modern media,” says Vijayakumar, who started training in Bharatanatyam at the age of five.
Talking about the structure of her 90-minute production, Vijayakumar explains that the performance will be presented in three sections. “The first piece is about how we see Goddesses in our culture, exploring themes of beauty and sensuality. The second section is as an abstract representation of the Goddess as a creator, constructing the space, like an architect moves their scales. The third piece is about how we see the Goddess as the embodiment of power. She is the creator, and she is also the one who brings an end to everything.”
Having trained under three teachers – Padmini Rao, Narmada, and Sundari Santhanam, and learning ballet – Vijayakumar has a range of movement and imagination that gives her choreographies a unique understanding of space. “Although my vocabulary is traditional and I am very careful to not add any ballet moves, I think how I see bodies in space is mostly influenced by what I learned in ballet.” Her range of movement can be seen in the way she uses karanas, which is an older movement system from the Natya Shastra that is more rounded and curvy to modern Bharatanatyam which is more linear and has lines.
The production also features a diverse range of music. The first piece is an original violin composition by Ambi Subramaniam with no lyrics. The second section is a percussionist piece by Sunaad Anoor and Vinod Shyam Anoor. “The third section of the performance is the only one with lyrics. There are verses from Lalita Sahasranama along with the song Maata Kaalika which was originally composed by Pandit Jasraj and has been reimagined by Raghuram Rajagopalan,” says Vijayakumar.