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TODAY'S PAPER FEATURES METRO PLUS

March 31, 20

Staging stories

LEELA VENKATARAMANEvent The Nritya Katha festival brought the Capital's audiences a range ofdance productions

Given the overdose of Rabindranath Tagore presentations, that the three-day festival Nritya

Katha organised by Maitreyee Pahadi's Lok Chhanda Cultural Unit at Kamani auditorium

managed to feature some unique group work, is an achievement. Maitreyi's opening event,

Ektara Pathasala (The School for Bauls), based on Tagore's poem Baul from Shishu

Bholanath, captured in a mixed vocabulary of Bengal's folk forms, Chhau, Kathak chakkars,

Kalaripayattu, the gay abandon of the selfless Bauls whom Tagore refers to as Questors'.

Maitreyee's choreography with cart-wheeling, jumping and broad plies, and softer moments

rendered by agile, poised male and female dancers of Lok Chhanda Cultural Unit, Midnapur,

made full use of simple black and red costume contrasts, light and shade effects,

tandav/lasya tones and levels on stage to create strong group images. The Bauls who reject

societal conventions are bound by a strong search for the mysteries of life which Maitreyee

suggests without any direct narrative. In a gesture of throwing off shackles of society was

discarding a net-top worn round the neck. Dancing with the ektara and using mallakhamb

balancing on ropes along with grounded dancers suggesting life beyond Earth and using wellknown Tagore song tunes of Ekla Chalo and Mama Chitta and others in Abu

Chakraborty's well-structured music, the strong Baul individuality was aesthetically

reflected.

Amader Jatra Holo Shuru In Guru Singhajit Singh's Manipuri, Jagoi and Cholom

visualisation appeals to the Almighty using the metaphor of the journey in a boat through the

sea of life amidst death, unpredictably rough and choppy at times and calm at others. The

pung players along with the dancers provide the rhythm through which one journeys on.

Even the singing while faithful to Tagore's lyric, is unmistakably grounded in the Manipuri

art. Similarly the sankirtana form of khartal and pung performers keeping rhythm to a

Manipuri translation of Vande Mataram was very intelligently done.

Santosh Nair's We can make the Difference (shown before) about Man becoming aware of

being in harmony with the Universe to preserve ecology amidst global warming, given

trained Sadhya dancers, used too much of visual video material removing all challenges

from body language communicating the message. The backdrop seemed to say it all.

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Petipa's La Bayadere in the Ballet and Contemporary Dance language provided surprising

standards, by the Imperial Fernando Ballet Company based in India since 2007. The main

roles of Nijum Sarvaria as the Bayadere, Fernando Aguilera the choreographer as the high

Brahmin, Bianco Alcocer Cafarratto as Hamsatti and Felip Barea Arrasquin as Solor the

warrior were all strong ballet performers, with Sangeet Gupta as the Rajah Dugmanta of

Golkonda having more posturing (done with conviction) than actual dancing. With finecostumes, sets and a still evolving but disciplined corps de ballet doing contemporary dance

without ballet shoes, the presentation was appreciated.

Nothing could beat the slick artistry of Fireflies presented by Shadhona group from

Bangladesh working for South Asian unity through music and dance. These Haiku-inspired

winged fancies of Tagore, more prose then poetry, are wise luminous ideas on

life/earth/God/and a multi-cultural world, pointing to clean thoughts of an open mind. And

catching the fragrance of this unsullied purity of mind, was the refined elegance of the

production with six dancers moving with the greatest of grace and symmetry. The secret lay

in supremely aesthetic simplicity, clean lines of costume and movement with no fuss, highly

creative with choreography inspired by traditional vocabulary of classical movements,

punctuated by fleeting, arresting flashes of rhythmic syllable-based passages, all with a

minimalism and no clutter. The feel of all pervading beauty was created beyond being

pinned down in defined images. Like fireflies, winged thoughts flew in the air like just

dancing without aiming at a destination, like offerings made to wayside shrines rather than

grand temples at end of the road, like rivers reaching the sea, like work finding fulfilment in

depths of leisure, like the silence of the Bindu in lyrics like Akash Bhora, Shoorja tara like

Life accepting darkness for its spouse for the sake of creation. Full marks to Amit

Chowdhury's choreography, the melodic softness of Ninjher Chowdhury's music designing

and of course the overall supervision of Lubna Marium!

Shri Ram Bharatiya Kala Kendra's Parikrama in Mayurbhanj Chhau is not a new work

but has been changed a lot. Atman coming down to Earth penetrating layers of sky, water,fire, wind, being submerged under the five senses and escaping finally to the silence and

peace of a liberated space with the Kundalini shakti roused, is a difficult theme visualised

through some challenging movement choreography. The Vayu sequence in particular with

the background visual of the lone eagle in the sky flapping its giant wings was very evocative.

Trained bodies moving with agility from Mallakhamb balancing on a the cloth rope to Chhau

movements and Kathak chakkars, the dancers while moving well, need to develop more

group synchronicity, shedding individual differences. Shubha Mudgal's music with Kabir's

words (not strictly correct to say that body movement alone gives message without sahitya)

evoked the mood needed.

LEELA VENKATARAMAN

http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-features/tp-metroplus/article3264028.ece

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