September 12, 2005

DANCE REVIEW

Moving mix of elegance, enrichment

By Karen Campbell, Globe Correspondent | September 12, 2005

Madhavi Mudgal
At: The National Heritage Museum, Saturday

LEXINGTON -- With only a sly glance, a tilt of the head, a wave of a hand, and the flicker of fingers, Madhavi Mudgal can tell the most vividly descriptive stories. Using movement grounded in the eastern India dance style Odissi, which dates back to the first century BC, she visually narrates a poem about the arrival of spring, her florid movements a kind of musical sign language that calls to mind trees laden with flowers, a heavily scented breeze, bees buzzing, and lovelorn maidens wandering aimlessly.

But this kind of dramatic mime and posturing is just one facet of Odissi, as Mudgal and the talented young women of her Gandharva Dance Ensemble showed Saturday night in a performance sponsored by the Meru Education Foundation. In mesmerizing displays of pure movement, the dancers also pounded out sophisticated rhythmic patterns with their feet, their arms and expressive hands in near constant motion all the while, inscribing intricate patterns in the air.

Odissi is a remarkably rich, lyrical dance style characterized by a sculptural quality in the body and arms and rigorous rhythmic invention in complex ball/heel combinations of the feet, with shifting metrical patterns giving the movement both propulsion and unpredictability. The weight is centered low, legs bent and back arched, the torso sliding from side to side as if on casters and the head swiveling with its own rhythmic articulation.

In her group choreography, Mudgal blends the ancient tradition with a modern sensibility, crafting dances to send performers into eye-catching patterns that transform the space. In the ''Arabhi Pallavi," unison phrases were distended into imitative layers or spun out into the space in circles, diagonals, or shifting lines. In the abstract ''Dvidha," a duet between Mudgal and her niece Arushi, the two connected and disconnected through playful imitations and mirrored movements, the younger Mudgal often mimicking movement from a low squat. (The charismatic Arushi is fabulously expressive and articulate, from her flirtatious eyes to the tips of her long, tapering fingers.)

The opening invocation of the sacred waters of the river Ganga and the ''Kalyan," which saluted the ''divine omnipresence," reflected the belief in India that ''dance is one of the paths to spiritual wisdom." Only the final ''Pallavan" was a bit dry and predictable, though it provided an effective showcase of the dance style's five basic rhythmic structures.

Mudgal's spoken introductions provided clear, informative contexts for the choreography while illuminating some of the gestural symbolism and characteristic movement elements of the style. This added enormously to the audience's understanding and appreciation. The Meru Education Foundation's worthy mission is to bring Indian culture to a wide range of audiences. It could hardly find a more compelling ambassador.