Admirable astrological dance feat

The Natyalaya School of Indian Dance presented yet another dance ballet on February 20 at the Rowville Secondary College. Dance ballets are mammoth productions requiring enormous commitment in terms of resources, time and energy that most schools produce one every two or three years, if possible. It is to the credit of Natyalaya’s founderdirector Ushanthini Sripadmanathan that she manages to produce one annually – and each year it is a different and new offering.

This year, the title of the ballet was ‘Geometry’ and the theme was the mandalas and the nine ‘planets’ or gruhas in the Indian astrological system: seven visible ones which include the sun and the moon besides Mars, Mercury, Jupiter, Venus and Saturn; and the two lunar nodes Rahu and Ketu. The ballet was new and different, depicting each of the gruhas in special postures; each deity and temple associated with a gruha; their powers and their significance.

The choreography by Ushanthini was excellent, well researched, traditional in the best sense of the term, and well executed by her students. Despite not being a familiar story or a ballet with a simple story-line, the choreography and presentation were such that the audience was able to follow the complex ideas and concepts behind the evening’s dance.

The libretto and composition of the music for the ballet was by Kumbakonam Gajendran, a talented composer and