The circle of dance
NANDINI NAIR
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During Navratras, a visit to Gujarat shows how the State and its people celebrate with Garba.
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Photo: PTI
CULTURAL STROKES Garba remains a celebration of the rhythms of life in Gujarat.
Garba is resurrecting Gujarat. The circular dance form, performed during Navratri, is being used to attract tourists and to blur not-so-distant history. The Government of Gujarat is celebrating 2006 as Tourism Year. On the first day of Navratri, the Government put up a spectacular event in Gandhinagar for `Vibrant Gujarat'. Speaking at the event, Chief Minister Narendra Modi said, "Garba, dandiya, Gujarat ki pahchan hain." He hoped that through the event the world would be familiarised with this dance form.
The concert, with 672 artistes, 14 international troupes, eight theme pavilions and thousands in attendance, was on an immense scale. Renowned choreographer Kalpesh Dalal was the mind behind the three-hour event. The dance extravaganza was complete with laser lights, smoke clouds and multimedia tools. But those were just the add-ons. The stars of the show were certainly the dancers.
Coming together
The large projection screens captured only fragments of the stage. The arena was a flurry with colour, movement, fire, props and masks. With hundreds of artistes dancing simultaneously, the audience suffered from surfeit. Dances from different Indian states coalesced with dances from Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, Israel and Indonesia. Ballerinas pirouetted to Kathak beats. Kathakali dancers swayed to Garba. The scale erased cribs of dances being reduced to token fragments.
In the previous decade when other states were marketing tourism, Gujarat had failed to make use of the opportunity. But it has now decided to focus on events and festivals. Tours are being planned around the Tarnetar Fair, Rann Utsav, Sharad Utsav and Navratri Festival.
On the streets
But to experience the festival in its true essence one only has to drive around Ahmedabad. Auto twists and turn down alleyways' musical notes steal into the air. Garba literally means, "to move around deities". In colonies, the residents dance around a large speaker on a tin chair. On the side would stand a heartfelt shrine dedicated to the Mother Goddess. Arrangements of twinkling diyas welcome one into the campus. Here in the back lawns garba is still an art form. Students who have rehearsed in the previous weeks dance in symmetrical spirals. There are no cheap variations or modern mutilations here, even though students are from different regions. The traditional might give way to jeans and kurtas but the dance steps continue to be innate. The music starts slowly but as the pace picks up so do the participants. Singing a riff, Vibhuti Chhaya, Deputy Director of Information, explains the kinds of garba. "Pracheen graba is the real garba," she says.
Here one woman sings while others repeat after her. It is usually of either three-tali or two-tali (claps).
The other one is `Raas', which is based on Krishna and his gopis and is performed with sticks. The only instruments used are harmonium and dholak, but with dandiya more instruments have been incorporated. There are regional variations and nuances. But during the nine days of Navratri, garba is essentially a celebration of the rhythms of life.
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