How Dhanduthapani Pillai created a distinct Bharatanatyam repertoire

One of the problems faced in teaching Bharatanatyam to young students is the lack of suitable characters that are designed for dancers in the age group of eight to 12. Amazingly, the multi-faceted and renowned Bharatanatyam guru, KN Dhandayuthapani Pillai noticed this difference and created a wonderful varnam ‘Annayi Maraven Aadi’ in the Abhogi raga. It describes the simple and meaningful ways in which parents express the love they bring to children. As an educational tool, it was a great eye opener. Before young students can understand Shringar Rasa, they may be taught the alphabet form. So in many ways, this Varnam is one of my absolute favourites.

Learning from his younger brother, Guru KN Dakshinamurthy in Delhi, I trained under Swarna Saraswati before moving on to the Dhanayuthapani style. He also taught me Nattuvangam and urged me to teach. And that’s how I established my school theatrical tree.

Over the years, several elements of the Dhandayutpani style have stood me in good stead. Most important, of course, are the unique Jathi Theermanams, which are crunchy and full of magic in terms of catchy pauses and action, effective tools for choreography, and I adapted them to the material I created later. was.

Another wonderful aspect is the musicality of his characters. Some of the dance moves to the libretto were paired beautifully with matching accompaniments – a hallmark of his style. I have transferred this to my teaching pedagogy in the Natya Vriksha.

Dhanduthapani Pillai Sir was a wonderful poet and musician. I have often danced her karahapriya varnam ‘Mohamagine’, in which all the ancient varnam sentiments are portrayed with deep grace and beauty. And in an evening concert, Karaharapriya takes the dance experience to another level.

Influence of Thanjavur Quartet

His understanding of dance imagery fills Varnam with a lot of possibilities for the creativity of the dancer. The repeated use of restraint, maaran and pinning nayak in a very limited manner reflects the impact the Thanjavur quartet had on him. But then, his work in films also provided glimpses of both poetic and lyrical brilliance, which makes his characters prominently danceable.

Another piece that is needed and much loved by many of us is his Kanada Jatiswaram. I worked on this article with his senior student Usha Srinivasan and we often wondered how Korve would fit so well to the beat of the vocals. For me this work also had great potential mainly because of its melodious music. I later improved upon it and looked at it differently. And the final product, which I call Sakhi-Swaram, uses various childhood games to create an interesting choreography.

Dhanduthapani Pillai’s Ragamalika Thillana is another piece that I cherish. Many of my students have learned and demonstrated it. Musicality and suitability for dance are both great qualities that Mr. brings out in this piece. It lends itself easily to dance patterns and sequences as it was composed for dance. Hence the beauty of the format of Ek Thilana for Bharatanatyam stands out brilliantly.

The author is a renowned Bharatnatyam artist.