A matured performance by youngsters

Sri Durga Sai Nruthya Niketan from Kothagudem organised an evening of dance at Ravindra Bharathi, Hyderabad. All the programmes were performed by the young dancers who are being trained at Kothagudem by Madhurapantula Sita Lakshmi Prasad.

The programme started with ‘Mamavathu Sri Saraswathi’ and followed with ‘Jaya Jaya Hey Telangana’, ‘Jatiswaram’, ‘Jaya Jaya Durge’, ‘Krishna Janana Sabdam’ and a ‘Tillana’.

This was followed by ‘Ramayana Sabdam’ in which the story of how the ‘Golden deer’ moves Lord Rama deep into the forest and how Ravana comes in disguise as a beggar and lures Sita out of the ‘Laxman Rekha’ is depicted. Also shown is the scene of Jatayu fighting a valiant losing battle with Ravana.

Then followed an interesting dance depicting the story of the Sammakka Saralamma (the mother and daughter duo who fought the feudal unjust rule of law) The Sammakka Sarakka Jatra at Medaram near Warangal is a bi-annual pilgrimage and one of the world’s largest congregations of tribals.

Devotees come from all parts of India and offer jaggery equivalent to their weight and then take a bath in the Jampanna river stream. The children depicted most of the story beautifully and it showed the exemplary training given to them by their Guru.

Sita Lakshmi Prasad learned to dance from VempatiRavishankar, J Ratnakumar, Madhu Nirmala and Vedantam Venkata Chalapathi. She has also choreographed and performed in well-known ballets like ‘Nava Durga’, ‘Sri Krishna Parijatham’ and ‘Deepavali’.

By Jaywant Naidu