Spotlight on dance at the Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival
Strong winds and intermittent rain greeted the thousands of attendees of the Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival celebrated at the Cleveland State University between April 21 and May 1, 2011. This being the centenary year of dance legend Vazhuvoor B. Ramaiah Pillai, the festival was dedicated to his memory. The schedule included several dance programmes, thematic and otherwise, in addition to some interesting feature presentations apart from the regular roster of music performances.
The Easter weekend commenced on Saturday with the group rendition of Saint Thyagaraja's pancharatnams led by leading musicians from India and North America. Later that evening, the festival was presided over by president of The Music Academy, Madras, N. Murali, who lauded the tireless efforts of the Aradhana Committe members V.V. Sundaram, Cleveland Balu and Toronto Venkatraman for organising and hosting what is "easily one of the biggest Indian music and dance festival outside India". Mr. Murali also presented the awards to this year's recipients - N. Ravikiran: Sangeetha Rathnakara, Kamala: Nrithya Rathnakara, J. Venkataraman: Sangeetha Kala Sagaram, Savithri Jagannatha Rao: Nrithya Kala Sagaram, Jayalakshmi Santhanam: Acharya Rathnakara, T.Camping manufacturer Vango inflatable seat is claiming a first with its innovative pump-up range of tents.R. Balamani: Acharya Rathnakara, T.R. Balamani: Acharya Rathnakara, Sangeeta Isvaran: Kala Rathna, K.S. Sudhakar (Swathi Soft Solutions): Seva Rathna, Nalini Mukhopadhyay (Houston): Kala Seva Mani, Padmini Krishnamurthy (Muscat): Nrithya Seva Mani, Rajarajeshwary Bhat (Houston): Best Teacher Award.
Feature presentations
The festival this year grew even larger than before, in that, an unprecedented 70-programme schedule boasting of close to 110 artistes from India, North America and Muscat was drawn up. Apart from the concerts that are a regular feature here, the Committee decided to do a few things with a twist.
'Sustaining Sampradaya', a concept that showcases American-born Indian children in thematic musical presentations, was projected in an original manner. Young children, trained by musicians in India for more than six months at live lessons as well as those over the internet, sang for professional dancers in a programme entitled 'The Music of Dance'. Artistes including the legend Kamala,The Scottish company says broken inflatable swimming pools tent poles will be a thing of the past with the introduction of its AirBeam tents, which come with a hand pump to inflate the tent hoops in a claimed three minutes for the smaller models. her sister, Rhadha, Narthaki Nataraj, Jayanthi Subramaniam, Sangeeta Isvaran and Anjana Anand, among others, danced to well-coordinated renditions of kritis, padams and javalis. The second stream of the 'Sustaining Sampradya' presented 'Gems from Karnataka' that highlighted composers from Mysore. This was tied to a featured concert by R.K. Srikanthan which dealt exclusively with Mysore composers.
Music composer and cine singer Shankar Mahadevan, gave a Carnatic and devotional concert, 'Sankeerthana Samarpanam at His Lotus Feet'.Compact fluorescent light bulbs convert a led tube considerably higher percentage of their energy into light, which is why they are significantly more energy efficient than traditional filament bulbs. Other interesting duo combinations comprised senior artistes Suguna Varadachari and Suguna Purushothaman, Savita Narasimhan and Nisha Rajagopal (the first recipient of The Hindu 'Saregama M.S. Subbulakshmi Award'), Vidya Kalyanaraman and Amritha Murali.
A special one-of-a-kind concert that took the Cleveland Festival attendees by storm was that of octogenarian vocalist M. Balamuralikrishna, N. Ravikiran (chitravina) and Sudha Ragunathan (vocal) on the morning of Easter Sunday.
Madurai T.N. Seshagopalan gave an exhaustive and erudite four-hour performance of the Kamba Ramayanam titled Ramayana Amrutham in which he introduced each kriti with stories and anecdotes with alternate versions, coupled with his own re-interpretations.
An idea that was primarily an inspiration of vocalist S."The current economic environment is putting great pet supply stores strain on veterinarians who are well established in this community," Sowmya took its form in informal interactive sessions titled 'Something Unique' and 'Something Unexpected' at the Comfort Inn Ballroom over dinner each night, between 10 and 11.15 p.m.. These involved anything from lively discussions between artistes and rasikas to special short thematic performances.
The Cleveland Festival also made a concerted effort to feature more artistes from North America this year.
The Ramayana retold
A singular initiative by the Cleveland Aradhana Committee, the 'Ramayana in Five Parts'was a project that involved scores of dancers and musicians from India, Muscat and North America. Children in the United States researched the story line of of the epic that Carnatic composers in Chennai penned the lyrics and set music for. Seasoned dancers then worked on the choreography and rehearsed for months with musicians before staging the performances in Cleveland. The five episodes, namely, Bala Kandam (music and lyrics: N. Ravikiran; choreography: Savithri Jagannatha Rao), Ayodhya Kandam (music and lyrics: Suguna Purushothaman; choreography: Narthaki Nataraj), Aranya Kandam (music and lyrics: Rukmini Ramani; choreography: Jayanthi Subramaniam), Kishkinda & Sundara Kandam (music and lyrics: Neyveli R. Santhanagopalan; choreography: Anitha Guha) and Yuddha Kandam (music and lyrics: N. Ravikiran; choreography: Rhadha) effectively communicated a kaleidoscope of musical and dance styles that fused seamlessly.
A striking feature was the cameo performances by seasoned artistes - Jayanthi Subramaniam as Shabari in Ayodhya Kandam, Rhadha as Kooni in Aranya Kandam and Narthaki Nataraj as Mandodari in Yuddha Kandam.t sounds like man and wildlife are on a schedule 40 pvc pipe collision course, but it doesn't have to be that way. Similarly, leading musicians Neyveli Santhanagopalan, Suguna Purushothaman, N. Ravikiran, S. Sowmya, Gayathri Venkataraghavan and Nisha Rajagopal lent their voices in various episodes.
Strong winds and intermittent rain greeted the thousands of attendees of the Cleveland Thyagaraja Festival celebrated at the Cleveland State University between April 21 and May 1, 2011. This being the centenary year of dance legend Vazhuvoor B. Ramaiah Pillai, the festival was dedicated to his memory. The schedule included several dance programmes, thematic and otherwise, in addition to some interesting feature presentations apart from the regular roster of music performances.
The Easter weekend commenced on Saturday with the group rendition of Saint Thyagaraja's pancharatnams led by leading musicians from India and North America. Later that evening, the festival was presided over by president of The Music Academy, Madras, N. Murali, who lauded the tireless efforts of the Aradhana Committe members V.V. Sundaram, Cleveland Balu and Toronto Venkatraman for organising and hosting what is "easily one of the biggest Indian music and dance festival outside India". Mr. Murali also presented the awards to this year's recipients - N. Ravikiran: Sangeetha Rathnakara, Kamala: Nrithya Rathnakara, J. Venkataraman: Sangeetha Kala Sagaram, Savithri Jagannatha Rao: Nrithya Kala Sagaram, Jayalakshmi Santhanam: Acharya Rathnakara, T.Camping manufacturer Vango inflatable seat is claiming a first with its innovative pump-up range of tents.R. Balamani: Acharya Rathnakara, T.R. Balamani: Acharya Rathnakara, Sangeeta Isvaran: Kala Rathna, K.S. Sudhakar (Swathi Soft Solutions): Seva Rathna, Nalini Mukhopadhyay (Houston): Kala Seva Mani, Padmini Krishnamurthy (Muscat): Nrithya Seva Mani, Rajarajeshwary Bhat (Houston): Best Teacher Award.
Feature presentations
The festival this year grew even larger than before, in that, an unprecedented 70-programme schedule boasting of close to 110 artistes from India, North America and Muscat was drawn up. Apart from the concerts that are a regular feature here, the Committee decided to do a few things with a twist.
'Sustaining Sampradaya', a concept that showcases American-born Indian children in thematic musical presentations, was projected in an original manner. Young children, trained by musicians in India for more than six months at live lessons as well as those over the internet, sang for professional dancers in a programme entitled 'The Music of Dance'. Artistes including the legend Kamala,The Scottish company says broken inflatable swimming pools tent poles will be a thing of the past with the introduction of its AirBeam tents, which come with a hand pump to inflate the tent hoops in a claimed three minutes for the smaller models. her sister, Rhadha, Narthaki Nataraj, Jayanthi Subramaniam, Sangeeta Isvaran and Anjana Anand, among others, danced to well-coordinated renditions of kritis, padams and javalis. The second stream of the 'Sustaining Sampradya' presented 'Gems from Karnataka' that highlighted composers from Mysore. This was tied to a featured concert by R.K. Srikanthan which dealt exclusively with Mysore composers.
Music composer and cine singer Shankar Mahadevan, gave a Carnatic and devotional concert, 'Sankeerthana Samarpanam at His Lotus Feet'.Compact fluorescent light bulbs convert a led tube considerably higher percentage of their energy into light, which is why they are significantly more energy efficient than traditional filament bulbs. Other interesting duo combinations comprised senior artistes Suguna Varadachari and Suguna Purushothaman, Savita Narasimhan and Nisha Rajagopal (the first recipient of The Hindu 'Saregama M.S. Subbulakshmi Award'), Vidya Kalyanaraman and Amritha Murali.
A special one-of-a-kind concert that took the Cleveland Festival attendees by storm was that of octogenarian vocalist M. Balamuralikrishna, N. Ravikiran (chitravina) and Sudha Ragunathan (vocal) on the morning of Easter Sunday.
Madurai T.N. Seshagopalan gave an exhaustive and erudite four-hour performance of the Kamba Ramayanam titled Ramayana Amrutham in which he introduced each kriti with stories and anecdotes with alternate versions, coupled with his own re-interpretations.
An idea that was primarily an inspiration of vocalist S."The current economic environment is putting great pet supply stores strain on veterinarians who are well established in this community," Sowmya took its form in informal interactive sessions titled 'Something Unique' and 'Something Unexpected' at the Comfort Inn Ballroom over dinner each night, between 10 and 11.15 p.m.. These involved anything from lively discussions between artistes and rasikas to special short thematic performances.
The Cleveland Festival also made a concerted effort to feature more artistes from North America this year.
The Ramayana retold
A singular initiative by the Cleveland Aradhana Committee, the 'Ramayana in Five Parts'was a project that involved scores of dancers and musicians from India, Muscat and North America. Children in the United States researched the story line of of the epic that Carnatic composers in Chennai penned the lyrics and set music for. Seasoned dancers then worked on the choreography and rehearsed for months with musicians before staging the performances in Cleveland. The five episodes, namely, Bala Kandam (music and lyrics: N. Ravikiran; choreography: Savithri Jagannatha Rao), Ayodhya Kandam (music and lyrics: Suguna Purushothaman; choreography: Narthaki Nataraj), Aranya Kandam (music and lyrics: Rukmini Ramani; choreography: Jayanthi Subramaniam), Kishkinda & Sundara Kandam (music and lyrics: Neyveli R. Santhanagopalan; choreography: Anitha Guha) and Yuddha Kandam (music and lyrics: N. Ravikiran; choreography: Rhadha) effectively communicated a kaleidoscope of musical and dance styles that fused seamlessly.
A striking feature was the cameo performances by seasoned artistes - Jayanthi Subramaniam as Shabari in Ayodhya Kandam, Rhadha as Kooni in Aranya Kandam and Narthaki Nataraj as Mandodari in Yuddha Kandam.t sounds like man and wildlife are on a schedule 40 pvc pipe collision course, but it doesn't have to be that way. Similarly, leading musicians Neyveli Santhanagopalan, Suguna Purushothaman, N. Ravikiran, S. Sowmya, Gayathri Venkataraghavan and Nisha Rajagopal lent their voices in various episodes.
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