Anatomy of a Varnam

Varnams are milestones in the world of music/dance. Since this is a dance-based blog I will concentrate on dance based varnams. Varnams are of different types and have different purposes. The two popular types of varnam are Taana Varnam and Pada varnam. The Tana varnams are usually used in music training/concerts and consists more of the akaaram based singing/playing. "Pada" means verse, so true to its name pada varnam have a lot of verses (even for places where, in Tana varnams, you only have swaras). Almost all varnam pieces in dance training are pada varnams because tana varnams are mostly to prove the prowess of one's singing rather than on nritta or abhinaya.  Therefore for the rest of this post, whenever I say Varnam, I mean pada varnam.

The structure of a varnam with the nattuvangam is as follows. The blue color shows verses and green color shows swaras or simply musical notes (as in sa ri ga ma  or some such combo :) ) The nattuvangam is in red.
For illustrative purposes I have shown the corresponding parts of nee indha mayam (in purple italics). Please refer to the previous blogpost for actual lyrics.


-------------- Begin Purvangam (usually in 1st speed or sometimes in chowkam) -------------------

 First Line Intro

Theermanam I

Arudi (Walk back)

Pallavi - Nee indha maayam seidhal nyayam dhana dhayanidhiye

Arudi (Hit back)

Theermanam II

Arudi (Walk back)

Anupallavi - paayum maaran ambinale....

Arudi (Hit back)

Theermanam III

Arudi (Hit back)*

Mukthayiswaram (only musical notes) Ni Dha pa Ma ga ri..

Arudi (Walk back)

Mukthayiswara sahityam (verse for the same tune as #3) (Nee allal thuNai illai...)

Arudi (Walk back) and Pose¨ 

------------- End Purvangam (Purvangam == first half)   -----------------------------

============ Begin Uttarangam =====================

 Charanam (usually sung in 2nd speed) (Ayar kula deepame...) Intro
Theermanam IV

Arudi (Walk back)

Charanam Sanchari

Arudi (Hit back)

Chittaswaram #1 (Sa pa ni ma)

Arudi (Walk back)

Chittaswara sahityam #1 (svAmi ni kan pAr...)

Arudi (Hit back)

Chittaswaram #2 (Sa ri sa ni ri sa dha)

Arudi (Walk back)

Chittaswara sahityam #2 (Sarasadala ...)

Arudi (Hit back)

Chittaswaram #3 (Sa ri sa ni sa...)

Arudi (Walk back)

Chittaswara sahityam #3 (tarunamidu...)

Arudi (Hit back)

 Chittaswaram #4 (Sa sa ga ri sa ni ri sa...)

Arudi (Walk back)

Chittaswara sahityam #4 (Paaraai...)

Arudi (Walk back)¨

.... some varnams have more than 4 chittaswarams and some have lesser than 4.

============= End Uttarangam (Uttarangam == latter part) ================

* - You hit back because the next line is Mukthayiswaram which is also foot work. So you prefix the footwork with the hitting back

¨ - You walk back because the next line is Charanam and therefor abhinaya. You prefix the abhinaya with the more graceful walk (rather than hit).

While this is taking a specific varnam for illustrative purposes, the structure for varnams remain more or less the same.
Couple of things to note
1. Both nattuvangam (such as theermanams) and swaras (such as chittaswara or mukthayiswara) comprise of purely footwork.
2. All verses with actual lyrics comprise of abhinaya. For the main verses (Pallavi, Anupallavi and Charanam) they are often repeated multiple times. The dancer usually uses these repititions to either a. show variations in abhinaya or b. use abhinaya to show drama/story. For ex, eventhough the lines themselves may not directly refer to it, the dancer may show stories of krishna or rama during the lines. Such elaborations are called "sanchari"s. Sanchari literally means to roam around. These are called sanchari because they go in a roundabout way to express the meaning by enacting stories rather than do the abhinaya of the actual words.
Remember that these sancharis are creative outlets for the dancer to depict their facial expressions of emotions just as the intricate theermanams are their outlets for footwork.

I may do a followup post on just Dhanyasi varnam to explain a little more about the raga/tala structure of the same. 

Beginning Varnam 5/11/2013

My last post has been from October 2012 where I spoke about Korvais and Karvais.  Fast forward 7 months and we are already beginning our Varnam.
The post prior to that is from Sept 2011 where I introduced Kavuthuvum. So here's a list of what we learnt in the intervening year and half.
1. Ganesh Kavithuvum
2. Subramanya Kavithuvam
3. Natesha Kavithuvam
4. Alarippu
5. Kalyani Jathiswaram
6. Govardhanagiri (Krishna Shabdam) - Raga malika
7. Thodaya mangalam - Raga/Tala malika
(did I miss any)

You can see that as a child learns first the alphabet, forming into words learning the pronunciation and then eventually forming sentences, we have now reached a stage where we can put together these various elements of footwork, hand gestures and abhinaya to create a full length piece.

The varnam we are learning is Nee Indha Mayam by Papanasam Sivan in Raga Dhanyasi and Aadi Thalam.
Don't worry yet if the structure is a little vague. I will be explaining this in a subsequent post. Just pay attention to the bolded terms,  I will be referring theses names in the following post.
Here's the lyrics of this varnam . Meanings follow (in blue).

nI inda mAyam (padavarNam).  rAgA: dhanAysi.  tALA: Adi

Pallavi:

nI inda mAyam seidAl nyAyam tAnO dayAnidhiyE 

Is it fair/right if you do this mystical action, oh sympathetic one. (the "mAyam" here could refer to magic or testing behavior).

Anupallavi:

A:  pAyum mAran ambinAlE puNpaDu pAvaiyaik-kaNNAl pArAmal innum 

The girl has been hit by the arrow of the leaping Manmadhan (the love god), you are not even looking at her with your eyes yet (you're ignoring the lovestruck woman)

Muktayiswaram:(sAhityam)
nIyallAl tuNaiyillai bhuvi tanilE dayai purivaiyE nijamidu vanaja nayana

Without you, there is no support in this world, take pity on me, this is true oh lotus-eyed.

ninadubhaya caraNam kanavilum maravA enadu tApamara vandaruL iraivA

I pray to your helping feet. Oh God, please help remove the yearning that I don't even forget in my dreams.

muraLi gAna kuLir niraimati vadananE murahara munivar tozhum kamala caraNanE

the flute player, the cool moon faced one, the slayer of demons, the lotus feeted that sages pray to.

rAdhai maNavALA tuyaram ini tALEn mukhil nigar dayALA yadu patiyE  

Husband of Radha, I cannot bear this sorrow now, oh compassionate one like the rain bearing cloud, oh leader of yadavas.

Charanam:

Ayarkula dIpamE aruL tArAi

Oh shining light of ayar lineage bless me.

Chittaswaram (Sahityam):1:  svAmi nI kaN pAr satyabhAmA lOlA gOpAlA 

Oh God, please see me the lover of Sathyabhama, Gopala.

2:  sArasadaLa vilOcana parama pAvana sAmajavarada madurai vaLar 

Oh lotus eyed, the supreme holy being. The boon-giver to gajendra, the one who grew up in Mathura.

3:  taruNamidu ninaindu ninainduLLam varundinEn  

karuNai nidhiyE manadu kanindaruL viraindu 

this is the right time. I despaired thinking over and over again. Oh compassionate one, please soften your heart and come fast.

4:  pArAi punnakaiyoDennarugil vArAi nI manam irangi enai
parivuDanE enaduyirudan onrena anru kaland(u)En enai inru marandAi
pani nilAvil tavazh iniya tenralilum enadu mEniyazhal mezhugu pOl uruga
pagalirA tuyilurA tiru vizhigaLum pArAmukhamum tagumO manamum silaiyO

Please see me (pArAi), come near me with a smile, take pity on me. With lots of affection, that day you become one with my life, why did you forget me today. Even in the cool breeze that floats in the dewy moon, my body melts like an inflamed wax. There is no day with sleepless eyes, Is it right to show indifference (to me), is your heart a statue (as in made of stone?)

Korvais and Thalam 10/2/2012

Korvai - coming from the tamil word means to join. We join adavus that we learnt to make longer sequences. Just as the we form words with letters and sentences with words.

Of course like with any language there is a grammar to such Korvais. It is basically guided by thalam. Recall from one of the earlier posts that Thalam is a part of "Bha-ra-tha" natyam and possibly the most important part.

In Carnatic music there are 35 different thalams. How? There are 7 basic talas

1. Dhruva
2. Matya
3. Rupaka
4. Ata
5. Jhampa
6. Triputa
7. Eka


There are also 5 jaathis (types). These are
1. Tisram or 3
2. Chatushram or 4
3. Khandam or 5
4. Misram or 7
5. Sankeernam or 9

and hence you get 7*5 = 35 thalams. For a detailed discussion of thalams please refer to <insert shameless plug to self's blogpost on thalams>

So why this detailed discussion about thalams you ask. Because that determines the meter of the song and hence the meter of the korvai sequence you want to create. Take example of adi talam. It is 4+2+2 = 8. In pure terminology you can call it as Chatushra jaathi Triputa Thalam (Just as you can call water as H20). So what does it mean to you, it means that each cycle is 8 beats so you have to make sure that you create sequences that are multiples of 8 (or 4 sometimes). How do you do that? For that you need to identify the adavus that are intrinsically chatushram (NOTE: this is not a requirement. As you gain more experience you will be able to use other jaathis to form 8 counts, we will see an example towards the end of this post). For now let's take only chatushra adavus -

• Naatadavu - tha thai tha ha, dhi thai tha ha (notice the 4 count)
• tha thai thai tha
• tha hath thai hi
• thai ya thai yi
• thai thai dhi dhi thai (This one is a tricky one. Though it looks like it's 5 count by the way I have written the syllables, the dhi-dhi-thai actually only takes 2 counts). It is left as an exercise to the reader to dance dhi-dhi-thai and tha-ki-ta to notice the timing difference between the two.

Now your job is simple. Take any combination of the above and you have a sequence that can fit chatushra triputam (or adi talam). Which is really simple to understand because you can taking multiples of 4 and adding together to form multiples of 8 or 4.

Here are some adavus of Tisram:

• tha thai tham dhi thai tham (6)
• tha ki ta
• thai dhi dhi thai
• thai thaindha tha

So now if you needed to do say Chatusra Rupaka ( or Tisra Eka) - for ex the Kalyani Jatiswaram is Rupakam - you just form sequences of Tisrams. 

This is all great, sounds super simple. The biggest downside to this is that such choreography when used in regular dances will become monotonic and mundane aka BORING. So we use other ways of creating these sequences.

For example 8 = 4+4 but also 3+5 (so we can do tha-ki-ta, tha-ka tha-ki-ta). 

16 = 8+8 but also 4*3 + 4 = 4X(tha-ki-ta) + thai thai dhi dhi thai. 

See how it becomes way more interesting quickly. 

This has become a much longer post than I intended but I want to sign off with my most favorite sequence so far. It is 

thai dhi dhi thai 

thai thai dhi dhi thai

thai thai thai dhi dhi thai.

Why? It is 3+4+5 = 12 (Equally applicable to adi talam and rupaka thalam which covers almost 80-90% of the pieces that we learn). The one other variation would be misra chapu (or tisra triputa) which is 7 which can be easily extended to by adding dhi-dhi-thai in front. Sankeernam can be covered by removing thai dhi dhi thai and khandam can be covered by adding an extra thai dhidhi thai. Talk about versatility :)

Until next time.

Ganesha Kauthuvum

This piece is in the raaga Naatai. It goes as "Ari thiru marugane vigna vinayaka" praising Lord Ganesha. Originally it was called "Kavithuvam" or poetry which over years has morphed as "Kauthuvum".

Raagam: Naatai
Taalam: Aadi

.... I am rewriting this after a few months (ahem... ok more than a few months). I figured it's going to be hard to capture the dance parts of the piece. Instead I am going to concentrate on what is essence of a kauthuvam and what are some salient features. Hopefully I will capture most of them and those should be enough to juggle my memory (and yours) when needed. This is the first Kauthuvam that you will learn most probably for couple of reasons - 1. Being on Ganesha, the remover of obstacles it is customary to invoke Him first. 2. The kauthuvam itself has relatively simple steps and almost devoid of any expressions. For those of you who know carnatic music, think about lambodhara. This is analogous. It may seem like a jump from learning adavus but fret not, soon enough you will start remembering this fondly and yearn for this piece of cake - pun intended. The lyrics are as follows. It is interspersed with a lot of solkattu. Aru thirumaruganai Vigna vinayaka Vinai keda aruliya ganapathy jaya jaya Dhaditha thudhukai yaanai mugathanai Devargal ganapathy Ganapathy kavithuvam katravar vinai ara As you can see the lyrics are simple. In this we also learn to do the same verse twice - once with normal adavus and once in thattu mettu.

Korvais

We started learning Korvais or sequences. (Not to be confused with Karvais - with an a that we discussed a few weeks ago). Adavus that we have been learning so far are like building blocks. However to use the adavus for longer dance, we will need to put them together which is precisely what we do in Korvai. We do one after the other step without missing a beat (no pauses unless by design).

Keep in mind that these are simply some ways of putting them together and are really a manifestation of the choreographer's creativity.

Korvai #1

1. A modified form of 5th naata.  (which is basically first half of 5th naata twice, followed by 2nd naata) Do this starting with both legs.
2. tha-ki-ta (4 times) (right, left, right, left)
3. thai thai DDT (3 times). (right, left, right)

Do the entire set starting with right leg first.

Korvai #2

1. 7th naata on both sides (thaiyum thatha thaiyum thaha)
2. thai ha thai hi (3 times) followed by thai thai DDT (both sides)
3. thai ya thai hi thai ya thai hi (with pataka hands) once on each side
4. thai ya thai hi thai thai DDT (with alapadma hands).
5. Repeat 3 & 4 starting with left side.

Korvai #3 (Probably the easiest of the 3)
1. tha thai thai tha (with shikara mudra on the hand) in the following sequence.
   right-centre-front-centre, switch hands, left-centre-front-centre
2. thath thai tham dhi thai tham (2nd step) on both sides. 

Dance Dress Order Form.

Class notes 8/23/2011

Sorry for the short break last week. Thanks Nandini for sending out the notes. Since today was a rehash of last week's session, I am simply consolidating both into one.

The main focus of the class now is on 2 things - the Vijayadasami program and getting the basics right.

Let's start with the Vijayadasami piece. It's quite short but challenging since we are doing several steps in sequence without a pause. Here's the sequence that we follow.

Hand Gesture: Pushpaputa (as if you are holding flowers in your hand).
1. Tha-thai-thai-tha 8 sets of them. The order is as follows
  - Move to the right
  - Back to centre
  - Move to the left
  - Back to centre
  - Move to the left
  - Back to centre
  - Move to the right
  - Back to centre.

2. Tha-ki-ta-tha-ki-ta-thai. 4 sets of them in second speed which is equivalent of one cycle of adi tala. This is done in place with right leg leading always. So it right-toe-heel-right-toe-heel-right-hold.

******* some technical stuff please feel free to skip *******
This is still adi tala so has eight units for each tha-ki-ta-tha-ki-t-thai. The thai lasts for twice as the others. This is a beautiful choreography which is in thisra nadai adi talam. The adi talam that has 8 counts is split  as 3-3-2. Each tha-ki-ta forms the 3 and the thai for 2. Now notice that set of 4 such sequence completes 1 cycle of the adi tala. which shows that for each count of the adi tala, we need to do 4 units (so it goes as tha-ki-ta-tha/ki-ta-thai/tha-ki-ta-tha/ki-ta-thai and so on) This is purely to show the tala breakup. Since the underlying choreography is in thisra nadai, the actual break happens after tha-ki-ta and NOT tha-ki-ta-tha
******** End technical stuff ************

3. thai-thai-dhi-dhi-thai 4 times. In place.
Again this is sequence of 4 counts. how? thai (1) thai (1) dhi-dhi-thai (2). Though dhi-dhi-thai seems like it shd be 3, it is done in such a way that it only takes 2 counts and not 3. it is not dhi - dhi - thai, instead it is dhidhithai

This also covers 1 cycle of adi tala but unlike #2 this is only 4 counts (#2 was 8 counts) so it seems slower than #2.

4. tha-ka-dhi-mi. 8 times total (2 in each direction)
Starting with the right-turning right after every 2. so it goes right(2) - back(2) - left(2)- centre(2). again this covers one cycle of adi tala. Each tha-ka-dhi-mi is 4 making a total of 4*8 = 32 counts to be covered in 8 units of adi tala, yep, you guessed right, this goes pretty fast similar to #2. In fact this is the same speed as #2 however, due to the turning in this step, it's a lot harder to get correctly than #2.

5. move backward for 4 counts move forward for 4 counts (one cycle of adi tala). Lead with the right leg always. This step resembles that first 2 counts of thai-ha-thai-hi. So imagine doing thai-ha-thai-ha... always with the right moving first and moving front and back instead of side ways.

6. Sit down in full mandi for a 1 whole count of 8. This moves super slow. So it's almost like sitting down in slow motion.

7. Offer the flowers in front (2 count) touch the ground and take it to your eyes (2 count) stand up with hands in anjali mudra (like doing namaskar) above your head and slowly lowering. (4 count). Due to all the movement involved, this goes by very quickly compared to #6

Now that the flowers have been offered, your hands are held in anjali mudra for the rest of the steps.

8. Tha-ka-dhi-mi  8 count total (2 in each direction) Start facing front and turning right after every 2. So it goes Front-Right-Back-Left

9. You are now facing left. Step ahead and exit stage similar to 5 except only in forward direction (no backward movement).

When done in sequence, it goes by pretty quickly. It's quite a challenge to get them all squared out correctly. And maybe if we do manage to get it right and perfect, we can convince aunty to give us few more steps on stage :) go Hansa!!!