The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Antique tales, antics of animals and animated stage

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Wednesday, Jan 21, 2009
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Antique tales, antics of animals and animated stage

Staff Reporter

Dance-theatre presentation on Panchatantra, a curtain-raiser to Saarang 2009

— Photo: M.Karunakaran

Innovative form: A scene from the ‘The Dancing Tales of Panchatantra,’ a dance-theatre presentation held at the IIT-M.

CHENNAI: The animals in this dense lush green forest had the power to talk. Swishing their tails hither and thither and going about life the naughty monkeys, the wise rabbit, the kind cranes and the arrogant Lion King, had lessons to offer to the mankind.

‘The Dancing Tales of Panchatantra,’ a dance-theatre presentation by renowned Bharathanatyam and Kuchipudi exponent Ananda Shankar Jayant at the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, brought alive the characters in the forest through five well-known tales. The event, organised on Sunday, was a curtain- raiser to Saarang 2009 theatre fest.

The dancers presented five tales, including the smart hare that outwitted the mighty Lion, the king of the forest; the foolish monkey who gets his tail caught in the wedge; the cranes and the tortoise, the evil crocodile and the monkey; and the escape of the doves. Scenes, including those of the shimmering blue lake on whose bank the cranes lived, the frisky hare that successfully led the lion to a well, the naughty monkeys that played with the wedge pushed in by the woodcutters were brought out well. The production, which was a blend of the contemporary and the conventional, had the audience whistling and laughing at the antics of the animals. On why she chose Panchatantra, Ms.Jayant said she chose the tales as to her it is something that can reach to adults and children alike. “Classical dance has a completely dwindling audience as far as the youth is concerned. The audience is mostly old. Many youngsters are bored with the classical interpretations. I wanted to show them though dance on one level is a spiritual journey, it is also about grammar and it’s a communication tool, which they could relate to.” She said that she liked the Panchatantra tales and even though they have simple morals, funny, innocuous, she feels they are very relevant today. “My mother, had a tale and saying, for every occasion; which now in retrospect I realise guided us through the vagaries of adolescence and teenage and has stood us in good stead today,” she said. “A few years ago I revisited some of these stories and with the antics of the various characters, I was tickled and inspired …to translate these stories into dance….Inspired because …these stories had centuries of wisdom, compressed into a funny and innocuously small fable.”

The programme was produced by Shankarananda Kalakshetra and its concept, direction and choreography was by Ms.Jayant.

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