Ujjain: School girls enthralled by Abhinaya’s Kuchipudi dance workshop

Ujjain: Middle and high school girls in Ujjain were deeply inspired by Abhinaya Nagajothy’s Kuchpudi performance on the third day of her performance on Wednesday.

The workshop demonstration series organised by Spicmacay, was hugely successful as Abhinaya Nagajothy, the Kuchipudi artist from Delhi, true to her name explained the intricacies of Abhinaya and performed for the audience of Government Datana Middle School and Government Datana High School. The students who took to this series were overwhelmed by performance and explanations that were well articulated by the artiste. She explained that Natya Shatra was the foundation for classical dance in India. She taught students Hastabhinaya or the gestures of hand and their usages. She explained how Pataka, a mudra from Natya Shastra, is used to mean many things like “come, sit, stop, water, wind etc.”

The first number performed by Abhinaya Nagajothy was Poorvarangam set to Raga Malika and Adi Talam. This included a sloka about Gurus who are considered equivalent to Brahma, Vishnu and Maheshwara, the trinity gods of Hindu religion. This item included a shloka on Shiva in his Nataraja form, the cosmic dancer. His body is compared to the world, his speech to the literature, his attire to crescent of moon and stars and offered prayers to this form of a meditating Shiva. This was choreographed by Padma Bhushan Dr Vempati Chinna Satyam, the doyen of Kuchipudi dance.

She concluded with the Thillana, a composition of Dr Balamurali Krishna set to Brindavana Saranga and Adi talam. This was choreographed by her gurus who are also her parents, Guru Seetha Nagajothy and P Nagajothy. According to Spicmacay local chapter coordinator Pankaj Agrawal, on Thursday, she will perform in the Government Nutan Middle School, Desai Nagar and Government Vijayaraje Higher Secondary School, Ghas Mandi.