PANCHAMAHABOOTHAM

Professor C.V.Chandreshekar, a well-known dancer, researcher, teacher and choreographer, presented 'Panchamahabootham', a dance drama dealing with an abstract theme - the five primordial elements - Water, Air, Sky, Earth and Fire and the importance of these elements in the universe. The uniqueness lay in the fact that the whole production was based entirely on Nritta (Pure dance movements). The inspiration for the dance movements came from scriptures such as Abhinava Gupta's ancient treatise, Abhijnana Shakuntalam and the Vaastu Shastra.

The first piece started with a 'Dhyana Shloka', a benediction to Lord Shiva who is the embodiment of all the five elements, to Chandra, the Moon and to Surya, the Sun. Rajesh, a senior dancer from the school of the Dhananjayan's, performed this item. His silhouette in a majestic pose of Lord Shiva created the desired dramatic appeal. The music for this piece was set to Shanmukhapriya ragam. The absolute minimum orchestral support with just the melody of the violin and the voice of Professor Chandrashekhar was very appealing.

The second piece explored the relation of geometric lines with the elements as mentioned in the Vaastu Shastra, such as the horizontal line representing Water, the vertical (Fire), Diagonal (Air), Square (Earth) and the Formless (Sky). The dancers, with appropriate hand gestures and body movement, brought forth the meaning of each of these elements beautifully. They had perfect co-ordination. Each movement seemed to flow into the other. To depict the element of Fire, the female dancers formed a circle on stage, sitting and showing flames and suddenly a male dancer (Rajesh) jumped into the circle and echoed the movement (standing) with the other dancers, enacting the movements of the flames. Very imaginative. The music was set on the Panchjanya Ragas (known as the Kingly Five in Thyagaraja's Pancharatna Kritis). The mood of each raga sung was appropriate to the five elements.

The use of colours and their symbolic representation of the elements - Blue (Sky), Red (Fire), Brown (Earth), White (Water), and Golden (Air), were very interestingly interpreted in the third and final piece. The dancers with the use of coloured cloth pertaining to each of the five elements formed the pertinent geometrical patterns on stage.

The programme was enjoyable, though some of the actions of the dancers tended to get repetitive and monotonous. The musical score, conceptualised well, did not create an impact, as there were no tonal variations in its presentation.

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