CHENNAI: Bharatanatyam dancer Urmila Sathyanarayan has been contributing and performing in the Margazhi season for the past 40-50 years. Every year, she and her organisation Natya Sankalpaa comes up with different ideas and themes for their performances. While brainstorming ideas for the 35th Margazhi Mahotsav she and her team stumbled upon Thadathagai, known as the queen of Madurai and thus birthed the upcoming performance, Thadathagai - The Eternal Queen of Madurai.
“I was thinking of doing a production but was not sure on what concept, that is when a friend approached me about playing Meenakshi Kalyanam for half an hour. I really liked the idea and decided to make it a two-hour programme,” says Urmila.
Natya Sankalpaa was established in 1996 at Kilpauk Gardens, Chennai. Almost 55 students of the institution are performing for Thadathagai. Urmila says, “We drew our inspiration from Thiruvilayadal Puranam and it is mentioned there that Thadathagai is the original name that was given to Lord Madurai Meenakshy Amman. The lyrics for the performance have been sourced by Desamangayarkarasi and her student Aravind Kumar from Thiruvilayadal Puranam, and the magical musical score was done by Embar Kannan.”
Urmila mentions that Thadathagai is like a dream come true, as the team had started off on a small scale and never thought that the performance would branch out and grow into something that would make them proud. “Thadathagai is an informative and entertaining show, choreographed by Saikripa, a faculty of Natya Sankalpaa and by myself. We have been working on this show for the past 10 long months, where the complete crew along with the students joined after 2 months,” she says.
Urmila mentions that while curating the team mainly concentrated on making the choreography more appealing to the commoners so that they can enjoy and understand it. She says, “Thadathagai is not like a usual Bharatanatyam performance that is made only for a certain group of people who know the dance form. This show is for everyone of all generations and that makes these performances more special.”
Natya Sankalpaa expects that with this performance they manage to reach a wider range of audience in this Margazhi season. “Recently Thadathagai was performed at Narada Gana Sabha, Mylapore and it garnered positive feedback from the audience. They also expressed genuine appreciation and they thoroughly enjoyed it,” concludes Urmila.
Venue: Bharath Kalachar, December 28
Duration: From 6:30 pm to 8.00 pm
Call: 9941872698
Online tickets are available on BookMyShow