DANCING PEACOCK FROM SWITZERLAND

DANCING PEACOCK FROM SWITZERLAND

 N.Nandhivarman

Ms.Mangalanayagi Vasanthakumar visited Pondicherry last weekend as a cultural ambassador from Switzerland, the land of her domicile since 1992 after having been uprooted from the war torn Srilanka. She lost her parents in her early teens and went to Switzerland to live with her brother and married a close relative Vasanthakumar. She is running a dance school in Luzern area of Switzerland. Along with some other dance teachers is keeping the Tamil dance tradition alive in Switzerland.

Rabindranath Tagore lamenting on the decline of Bharathanatyam in India once said "Lord Siva gave his dance to Indonesians and left India only with his ashes". But like a phoenix out of ashes, this dance regained life in TamilNadu and now as torchbearers of Tamil culture, Indian and Srilankan dancers are nourishing this tradition in whichever country they live.

Anusha (Zug), Mathivathani and Gnanasundari (Zurich), Bhavani (Basel), Chandravathani (Berne), Nimalini (Zug), Anusha (Berne), Fedolina (Winterthur) and Meena (Olter) are the dance teachers teaching dance to girls of Tamil parents and of Inter-country marriages. Every year these teachers are sending their students to participate in the 4-day programme during the Easter holidays, which will be held at Solothurn to select a " Natya Mayil" which means dancing peacock. Nearly among 700 participants the talented artist will be chosen for the award.Bharathanatyam is the traditional Indian dance form, which is narrated in the 5560 couplets of Bharatha’s Natya Sastra. Slowly this dance instead of being practiced by one and all became confined to temples and devadasis. At that point of time it was known as Sathirattam in Tamil. During the days of freedom struggle attempts were made to involve women from all strata of society in practice of this dance. Krishna Iyer, an advocate who used to play women’s roles in dramas wrote about Dance and Health. He stressed the need for dancing ones way to sound health. Heeding to his appeal, the daughter of Ganapathy Iyer one Miss Kalanithi staged her performance in 1938, which was considered revolutionary in those days. Sathirattam became known as Bharathanatyam and almost 7 decades are over with such name change and now everyone practices this dance form. It is a sign of liberation of women. And in keeping this dance tradition alive Mangalanayagi is performing a laudable role in Switzerland. This year from Pondicherry Kalaimamani K.Rajamanikam and Thirumudi Arun went to Switzerland to provide live music for the dance competition to select the dancing peacock awardees for 2005. Thirumudi Arun is the last son of Late Thirumudi Sethuraman Chettiar former M.P and a great philanthropist . Both artists came home deeply impressed by the work done by Ms.Mangalanayagi. And Mangalanayagi underwent further refresher course in dance under the guidance of Kalaimamani Rajamanikam. Mangalanayagi originally learnt dance in Jaffna from Padmini Selvendrakumar and underwent 5 year training by Sivajini Srikandarajah. In addition she had finished 3-year diploma course in Fine arts under the Jaffna University.

Her current guru Kalaimamani K.Rajamanikam started his dance school Sangeetha Salangai Natyalaya in the year 1992. His disciples so far had staged 27 arangetrams. Kalaimamani Rajamanikam got training under the illustrious Thanjavor KP Kittappa Pillai and from Annamalai University Isaimamani diploma. He had staged the dance dramas titled Puratchi Kavi, Veera Thaai and Oru Karsilambu Niyayam Ketkirathu based on Silapathigaram epic. Currently he is choreographing the dance drama Arunkalaiselvi Aayi, scripted by Poet Jayarayor, who is known as silver-tongued poet of Pondicherry. This dance drama is about Aayi who laid the foundations for drinking water supply to Pondicherry.So far he had trained around 150 students who got married to grooms from overseas and in Europe he has many disciples of his school.

Sangeetha Salangai Natyalaya of Pondicherry on 17 th July 2005 in a function conferred the title Kalaignanamani on Mangalanayagi. The Speaker of Pondicherry Legislative Assembly M.D.R.Ramachandiran conferred the title and Former Minister K.Lakshminarayanan felicitated the artist. It is recognition for her services in Switzerland, and Pondicherry keeping its cosmopolitan outlook honours talent from whichever part of the globe.

 While acknowledging the award with humble thanks, Mangalanayagi Director of Salangai Narthanalayam said " Switzerland’s International Institute of Tamil Arts in Zurich is holding trainings and classes in Dance, Music both vocal and instrumental and accords seven grades in selection of artists. There is specified syllabus for every grade and students have to prove their mettle in theory as well as practical. These courses are taught through Tamil medium of instructions" Thus apart from private initiative collective steps to nourish Tamil Dance and Music contributes to the preservation of cultural heritage. Timely warning by Tagore had awakened Tamils and they are keeping their tradition alive.

[Courtesy: New Indian Express : July 23 / 2005]