Man as a part of Nature responsive to all her moods in different seasons is what ancient Indian thought has always reflected. Who better than Kalidas and Tagore, both poets for all seasons, could illustrate this concept of ‘Man in Nature’ – one in his Ritusamhar and the other in Rituranga.

Incorporating both the Sanskrit and the Bengali poetry in the libretto for a dance production in the Mohiniyattam style was Pallavi Krishnan whose production Rituranga was presented at the India Habitat Centre under the aegis of Impresario India. While Gurudev Rabindranath Tagore’s Rituranga has set musical compositions, the selection and tuning of verses from Kalidasa’s Ritusamhara were by Kavalam Narayana Panicker. Both the Tagore style of music and the Sopanam Kerala mode used for Mohiniyattam have in common an elongation of notes, though the Sopana gamakas are very different from the Rabindra Sangeet mode.

To match a Piloo and Darbari in one, to the Valaji of another calls for careful mixing, the continuity and flow not disturbed by jerky shifting from one to the other. Ragas like Vasanta and Malkauns or Hindolam are, of course, common to both types of music. The musical setting was intelligently handled.

A disciple of Santiniketan and later Kerala Kalamandalam and Bharati Shivaji, Pallavi Krishnan is equally at ease with the Bengali poetry of Tagore and the Mohiniyattam dance.

Featuring a group of neatly trained dancers, all Pallavi’s students from Bengal, Rituranga made for a very viewer worthy and entertaining hour of dance. The good group coordination came from meticulous rehearsing. At odd moments as when two dancers performed to the song “Daruno Agni Bane Re” describing enervating summer with drooping trees, wilted creatures and parched earth thirsting for rain, the Mohiniyattam smile as part of the enchantment the dance is supposed to weave, was a bit out of place.

But some of the catchy songs like “Hemonte kon basanteri bani” describing the forest in full moon and “Pous toder dak diyeche” where the cool winter wind is said to intoxicate with happiness the women working in the paddy fields, were very well-translated into the dance. The song – “Savana Gagane Ghor Ghana Ghata” describing Radha urged by her friends not to venture into the forests in the lightning and thunder for a tryst with Krishna – was also expressive.