Harikatha By Y Vijaya Valli Priya

Lord Vishnu once came Himself when an elephant beseeched Him for renderance. You might not see it in your lifetime. Then, you never know - Valli has a reputation.

Shilparamam, as a part of its ongoing sari festival, is organising a Harikatha by the renown Yelleshwarapu Vijaya Valli Priya, on the 7th of October.

The Harikatha by Valli will have renditions based on the story of Gajendra Moksham, written by Harikatha Pithamaha Adibhatla Narayana Das. The story is from the era of an earlier yuga, of an elephant with one crore wives, who gets into a fight with a crocodile that lasted for 1,000 years. He finally seeks refuge in the Almighty, Lord Vishnu, who comes to his rescue, with all the devas of Vaikuntham.

The play will also include Pootana padyams like Ala Vaikuntha Purambulu and Lawkithayu Ledu. Valli will be accompanied by N C Ramanujam on the violin and V Vasudeva Murthy on the mridangam.

Vijaya Valli is a Harikatha bhagavatarini, Kuchipudi dance guru and Carnatic musician, with a Diploma in Folk Arts and Masters in Kuchipudi Dance from the Potti Sriramulu Telugu University, Hyderabad. She took to the teaching of this existing style with a special briskness and feisty that she imbibed from her father and dedicated Guru Rudravaram Sudhakar Rao, and tries to inculcate the spirit of spontaneity and inquisitiveness in the young minds of her disciples with all the dedication at her budding institution Shankari Natyasthal.

She has rendered the Harikatha at several places since the age of 5, like the Vemulavada Thyagaraja Aradhana Utsavam, the Bhadrachalam Vaggeyakara Utsavam and the Yadagirigutta Vaggeyakara Utsavam, to mention a few. She has also represented the Government of Andhra Pradesh at the TANA Silver Jubilee Celebrations at Sunnyvale Temple, and the Sri Venkateshwara Swamy Temple at San Jose, Los Angeles, USA, in 2004.

Please contact the venue at 2310-0455 for further details.