VYAASOLPATHI / VYAASA JANANAM (1986)

The full moon day in the month of Adi is observed every year as the Guru Poornima or Vyasa Poornima, as homage to the sage Vyasa, the son of sage Parasara. Sage Veda-Vyasa arranged the Vedas in their present form, wrote Mahaabhaaratam and Bhagavad Gita, the 18 Puranas, the Brahma Sutras and several other works. Dhananjayan and the members of Bharata Kalanjali paid homage in dance to sage Vyasa on July 21, 1986 on Guru Poornima day at the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, Chennai.

Synopsis
This solo by Dhananjayan is based on lyrics by Malayalam poet Thunjath Ezhuttachan in his 'Mahaabhaaratam-Kilippattu'. Set to music by Reji George, it describes the story leading to the birth of the sage Vyasa. Sage Parasara wants to beget a son on a very auspicious full moon day and chose Kali (Matsyagandhi), a fisherwoman, to be the mother of the child. He creates an island in the middle of the river Yamuna and also a mist at the time of Vyasa's birth.

�As there was no time to rehearse, I told Reji that he just had to just follow my movements on stage and sing. Wherever there was an extempore piece, I asked him to give the musicians freedom to express themselves. They were all experienced musicians who had been working with me for so many years and rose admirably to the occasion. As the poet had described, I enacted the river Ganga flowing, the fish swimming in it, the sages doing penance, Satyavathy rowing the boat and how Parasara came there and so on. The choreography on stage was completely extempore. Nobody knew what I was going to do next, but the performance came out wonderfully. This shows that inspiration can come spontaneously on stage. The unfortunate thing is, it never struck me in the first place to videotape the show. I really wish we had because we can never recreate the magic of that inspired evening.�


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