Natanam Adinar
ram gopal (1912 - 2003) was one of the pioneers of modern dance in india (along with uday shankar). in the 1930's and 1940's he toured with a troupe of musicians and dancers, and was referred to as india's nijinsky. you can read more about him here.
the 78 pictured above features the 'ram gopal orchestra' playing part one and part two of a piece entitled natanam adinar, which is a dance devoted to shiva. the dance and music tells the following story...
"Once wickedness and evil accumulated on the earth people were killing each other, a few good-hearted men went to the forest and prayed to Shiva so that he appeared and did something. Shiva appeared and told them not to worry that everything would be arranged. People returned to the forest at the time given and shaw that as Shiva was dancing, he was destroying all the evil on the earth. Everything and everybody was afraid, even the snakes came out. After a while everybody, even the gods, were asking him to stop, but Shiva carried on dancing and destroying till all evil disappeared".
i don't know about the dancing, but the singing, particularly after the first minute of this track, is certainly stunning enough to banish all evil from my little room here, if not the greater pasadena area, or more. it's an unbelievable performance by a musician whose name i, unfortunately, could not find on the label, nor online...
click here to listento side 1, which is also part 1.
Labels: 78's, indian music, listen, nijinsky, ram gopal, shiva
1 Comments:
Gosh that's beautiful. Do you know this book, Heinrich Zimmer's 'The King and the Corpse: Tales of the Soul's Conquest of Evil"? It's one of F's and my favorites, Zimmer presents Eastern and Western myths across this theme, I think I paraphrased his opening story of Abu Kasem and his slippers in a long letter I wrote to you once. You may have the book but I think you would like a lot...
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