Keerthi Panicker’s experiments with Bharanatyam

  • | Friday | 20th July, 2018

In ‘Meera- Calling for a Saviour’, Bharatanatyam danseuse Keerthi Panicker gives the bhajan a modern interpretation. Hari tum haro jana ki peer, the Meera bhajan is a plea of the mystic poet and devotee of Lord Krishna. A disciple of The Dhananjayans, Keerthi says that the bhajan has already been staged by her gurus in its original context. A native of Kollam, Keerthi was initiated into dance by her mother, Usha Panicker. Doing abhinaya in the instrumental section has been a beautiful and fulfilling experience,” says Keerthi.

Hari tum haro jana ki peer, the Meera bhajan is a plea of the mystic poet and devotee of Lord Krishna. She sings about how he protected the honour of Draupadi as Krishna, saved his devotee Prahlada from Hiranyakashipu by assuming the form of Narakasura and rescued a drowning elephant Gajendra as Lord Vishnu. She prays to the Lord to take one more incarnation to save the world. In ‘Meera- Calling for a Saviour’, Bharatanatyam danseuse Keerthi Panicker gives the bhajan a modern interpretation. Draupadi stands for the woman who faces all kinds of harassment in public spaces; Prahlada is every kid who is unsafe and insecure; the elephant represents all the animals that are ill-treated. This is one among the productions that she will stage at a performance in the city today. A disciple of The Dhananjayans, Keerthi says that the bhajan has already been staged by her gurus in its original context. “It was a 10-minute production and I have expanded it to 35 minutes by adding a new dimension to it,” says the dancer. The highlight is the music, a collaboration of vocalist Sikkil Gurucharan and pianist Anil Srinivasan. “They have had a long association with my gurus. Using piano on a Bharatanatyam stage is rare. Doing abhinaya in the instrumental section has been a beautiful and fulfilling experience,” says Keerthi. She will present two more works, both collaborative projects with Gurucharan and Anil. One is about Radha and her highest form of love for Krishna and the next is on Sankaracharya’s association with his mother and how he arrived at his doctrines. All three are solo productions choreographed by Keerthi. Another item is a ‘Padavarna’, staged by students of her dance school, Dr Keerthi’s Institute of Arts-ANG, which has branches in Kollam and the city. A native of Kollam, Keerthi was initiated into dance by her mother, Usha Panicker. After that she got trained in the Pandanallur style by the late Bhargavan Pillai. She finished her post-graduation in music before moving to Chennai to learn from the Dhananjayans. She learnt from them for 16 years and in the meantime she finished her doctorate on the topic, ‘Music in dance-drama.’ Among her productions are ‘Sakthi Prabhavam’, ‘Sampurna Ramayanam’, ‘Sree Krishna Charitham’ and ‘Jungle Book for Children’. The event is at Vyloppilly Samskriti Bhavan today at 6.30 pm

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