Counting the Moons by Ksetrayya
“A North and South Indian classical dancer collaborate to evoke love, loss, and the slippery relationships between self, friend, and lover, in this contemporary abhinaya (emotional expression) piece loosely inspired by a poem by the 17th century Telegu poet, Ksetrayya,” says the blurb on the Vimeo page. Since I’ve featured a number of other dance pieces here, I thought I’d add this one to the mix. The poem quote goes by rather quickly in the video, so here it is again:
I wore myself out watching the road.
Counting the moons, I grieved,
Holding back a love I could not hold.
Telugu is a Dravidian language spoken by 95 million people in the state of Andhra Pradesh and adjacent areas of south India. Kshetrayya, a prolific composer and poet, is credited with the composition of some 4000 devotional (bhakti) poems to Krishna.
He perfected the padam format that is still being used today. His padams are sung in dance (Bharatanatyam and Kuchipudi) and music recitals. A unique feature of his padams is the practice of singing the anupallavi first then the pallavi (second verse followed by first verse). Most of the padams are of the theme of longing for the coming of the lord Krishna.
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Dave Bonta is a poet, editor, and web publisher from the Appalachian mountains of central Pennsylvania.
