The avatars of creativity
LEELA VENKATARAMAN
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In a week featuring the Janamashtami festival, Krishna as a theme dominated the dance scene.
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ALWAYS POPULAR A scene from Bharatiys Kala Kendra's dance production "Krishna". PHOTO: SHIV KUMAR PUSHPAKAR.
Predictably, the Janmashtami week saw dance with the Krishna preoccupation in varying modes - popular, classical and innovative. Playing weeklong before mixed audiences at the Kamani was Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra's evergreen, popular dance-drama Krishna.
The Krishna focus in an Odissi recital at Habitat's Stein auditorium featured dancer Lekha Mohanty, a disciple of the late Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra, under the HCL Concert Series. The dancer's equipoise and grammatically correct Odissi in profile and rhythm, despite the rather heavy body, would have created more impact with live music. One fails to understand the logic of Habitat organisers encouraging formal solo concerts with recorded music by Delhi-based dancers - a mixture of male and female vocalists lacking homogeneity. And then again, how was the programme titled `Sringar' with both the expressional numbers "Kede Chanda Janilo Sahi" and "Brajaku Chora" based on the exploits and feats of child Krishna? If one hoped for a Gita-Govinda ashtapadi to mitigate the shringar absence, it was not to be.
The "Takadhimi Ta Jham" Hamsadhwani pallavi had a quietly correct rendition, without the effusive joy and expansive coverage of floor space associated with this composition. The students who presented the Shankarabharanam pallavi showed a fair grasp over technique except for the dancer to the right (for audience facing the stage) who needs to hold the body straight.
Dance-theatre combine
POWERFUL PRESENTATION seema Agarwal in "Meera Rabi's at the National School of Drama.
Not often does one get to experience dance and theatre inputs gelling into such a power-packed presentation as in "Meera Rabi'a" presented at the National School of Drama's Abhimanch theatre by Bharatanatyam dancer Seema Agarwal.
Meera was born to aristocracy in 16th Century feudal Rajasthan while Rabi'a an 8th Century resident of Basra, born as the fourth daughter to a poverty stricken family, was sold to slavery. Both these women, one discarding royal trappings and the other embracing poverty, empowered by the fire and passion for union with the Divine, transcended their surroundings, their lives a saga tossed in the winds of an obsessive search for consummation of desire with Divinity.
Seema Agarwal's concept visualisation with director Abhilash Pillai's insight as touchstone is the culmination of painstaking research marinating over a year and a half. The script by Mahmood Farooqui and Seema uses as reference base an English biography on Rabi'a by Margaret Smith, translation by Md. Ilyas from the original Persian work "Tadhkirat al - Awaliya by Farid-ud-Din Attar, and English translation of Meera's poetry by Shama Fatehally. Seema's searingly intense performance spread over an hour and 10 minutes was played out against Sumantrao Sengupta's aesthetically designed backdrop of a crinkled white curtain with ragged outline of burnt edges pinned to the black curtain.
The dancer had the finest take-off point in the imaginative sound track designed by Sandy, where narration by Dilip Shankar and Alka Amin blended with snatches of Sufiana music, quawwali, Meera bhajan, thumri, recitations from the Quran, and sounds of hissing wind and nature in one of the most evocative mixes, the tone of urgent desire never lost sight of.
An edakka flourish here, a decisive tattu-kazhi intervention there, a teermanam recited elsewhere - it was the work of one living in the worlds of Meera and Rabi'a. How painlessly and naturally the tape slid from the words of one to the other without diluting that single-minded journey for that mystic goal - call it Krishna or by another name. Vocals by Vidya Rao, Chanchal Bharti and group, Sarfaraz Chisti, Nizam Khan were not in the prettily melodic mode but throbbed with raw emotion. Seema's superbly balanced body language had a stark quality - passion-inflaming simplicity, with no concessions made to virtuosity. A `takita' or `takatakita' in repetitive movements evoked the strong message of drudgery of Rabi'a's routine as also the never-ending search for elusive divinity. Seema's choreography used the hand and leg stretches of Bharatanatyam to evoke a feel of reaching-out for that something sought. Krishna sporting on the banks of the Yamuna with gopis was conveyed with just mukhabhinaya and gestures in the seated position. Just open hands covering the face were used to such effect at the start, Gautam Mazumdar's brilliant lighting illuminating through the space between the two hands a thin ribbon of brightness. Seema has coupled minimalism with a meditative intensity in a moving effort. More muscle to such detailed and disciplined combinations of dance and theatre!
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