Indian Classical Soloists Stand Out

Brilliant solo performances dominated the Festival of Dance 1998, which featured three kinds of Indian classical dance Saturday evening at the La Mirada Theater for the Performing Arts.

Mythili Prakash was a symphony of deftly executed geometric lines and shapes during her three selections from the Bharata Natyam repertoire. At just 16, she also has a gift for mime, but it is the hummingbird swiftness of her allegro passages that are most striking.

Raja and Radha Reddy, exponents of the Kuchipudi tradition, came next, with Raja’s masterful command and pliable features in the solo “Shiva Dance” a highlight. The Reddys’ 8-year-old daughter, Bhavana, also made her mark, displaying a budding ability to mesmerize in her own solo and as a child-prince in the dance drama “Prahalada Charitam.”

The riveting Odissi dancer Ajit Bhaskaran Das was last--an excellent choice, as he is the kind of performer who can make an audience forget they’ve been sitting for three hours without an intermission (at four hours, the dance concert format has seemingly been confused with the dance marathon). He even made you forget he was dancing to taped music (excellent musicians had accompanied other dancers). With his naked, expressive torso and his supple, strong sensuousness, Das adds a little Nureyev appeal to his Odissi. The languorous poses at which he excels never seemed static; each movement invited you to follow the next.

Das and Prakash ended the program with a few duets, but their solo work was where the action had been--which, in a reasonably paced, shorter program, would have been just about perfect.