Vaibhav Arekar’s offered a margam ‘Akasha’ at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha in December 2022.
| Photo Credit: RAGHUNATHAN S.R.
Vaibhav Arekar transforms Bharatanatyam into a well-choreographed present along with his music, lighting and actions. You could both admire his fashion, sense of area and timing or be startled by his audacious visualisation.
Vaibhav Arekar performing his margam ‘Akasha’ at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha’s Margazhi competition in December 2022.
| Photo Credit:
RAGHUNATHAN S.R.
Vaibhav is an unconventional artiste, who has made a title for himself in dance-theatre. In his palms, the ubiquitous margam turns into a theatrical expertise. It is a workforce effort with specialists — Sushant Jadhav (lighting) filling the stage at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha with an uncommon white wash, utilizing color selectively; Mahesh Swamy (flute), Kaleeshwara Pillai (nattuvangam) and Satish Krishnamurthy (mridangam, kanjira) increase momentum when there isn’t any whereas Srikanth Gopalakrishnan (vocal) and Vishwesh Swaminathan (violin) providing glorious melody.
Purists could balk, however one has to give room for change for the sake of continuity of the classical custom. At his recital, Vaibhav’s margam had new items and new views for the outdated. His theme was ‘Akasha’. The two opening items emphasised this — an uncommon alarippu in the historical 24-akshara Udghatta tala (marga tala revived by percussionist-scholar Guru Bharadwaj) and Dikshitar’s Kedaragowla kriti, ‘Anandanatana prakasam’, each on the Akasha Linga (cosmic dancer).
Vaibhav Arekar performing a margam, ‘Akasha’ at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha’s Margazhi competition, in December 2022.
| Photo Credit:
RAGHUNATHAN S.R.
The alarippu in Udghatta was a mixture of 4s and 5s with 3s, peppered with the sollu ‘Udghatta’ and Shiva-mudras. It ended with an arms-up flourish ‘Udghatta tham.’ This is Vaibhav’s fashion. He seems to be for methods to improve the total impact of his dance — in the kriti he used the evocative kanjira for Shiva tandava, and he contrasted busy nritta with a shock silence in the finish.
Vaibhav Arekar performing a margam ‘Akasha’ at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha’s Margazhi competition, in December 2022.
| Photo Credit:
RAGHUNATHAN S.R.
His visualisation of the varnam with a message of affection from the sakhi to the nayaka, Srinivasa, ‘Daani kori’ (Vasantha, Mishra Jhampa, Poochi Srinivasa Iyengar), was a research in dramatics. The pallavi was sung like a virutham to present us what the sakhi sees, as a prelude. The sancharis detailed the nayika’s state of hopelessness, her absorption in ideas of Srinivasa. There have been three characters in the piece, however Vaibhav’s role-play was at all times clear. While the sakhi took centre stage, he didn’t communicate of the nayaka as a godhead however caught to the lyrics describing the attributes and the plight of the nayika. It was padartha abhinaya dramatised as angika abhinaya, busy and generally lokadharmic; it might hold the viewers engaged, however is with out depth.
A Marimutha Pillai ninda stuti (‘Edukkittanai modi’, Surutti and a Purvi thillana (Rupakam, T. Vaidyanatha Bhagavatar) adopted the place he carried out a entire section of diagonal actions. Sometimes he doesn’t transfer, and leaves it to the orchestra. What sees Vaibhav by way of is his sophistication and stage presence.