MCA girls’ Panchavadyam: A defining moment in ADVIKA 2020

They dared all odds against them: Where to begin? Who will coach them? Who will get them the instruments? Above all, do they have the grit to do it on stage? Can they make a meaningful presentation with so little of training? Everybody else was doubtful, but not the MCA girls who had decided to participate in the Panchavadyam competition held as part of Advika 2020, this year’s ArtsFest in Vidya. A senior MCA student Mr Renjith Krishnan who himself is an accomplished Maddalam player and a professional Panchavadyam artist provided the much needed support and inspiration for the girls to take up the challenge. Renjith Krishnan helped in finding the gurus for giving training and also helped in getting the instruments. The faculty members helped the girls in finding a suitable location for training. The gurus later remarked that the girls were passionate in learning and they learned the techniques really fast. Had they obtained a little more time for training they would have made a presentation of truly professional standards.

Panchavadyam performances are traditionally a male preserve and this is for the first time an all-girls team is performing Panchavadyam in Vidya, and that made it a defining moment in the history of ArtFest in Vidya!

The artists

The girls who performed in the competition:

Maddalam	Thimila	Idakka	Ilaththaalam	Kombu
Veena T	Jyothi Sankar, Manasi P M	Gouripriya	P R Reshma, Anjali Jayaraj	Jeri Joseph

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