Familiar echoes of joy
ROMESH CHANDER
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The 14th Chaman Lal Awards Ceremony will long be remembered for its perfect execution.
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Light moments “Goonj” is directed by R.K. Dhingra , with choreography by Santosh Nair and group.
Founded in 1995 the Chaman Lal Memorial Society is perhaps the only society in India that annually recognises the services of back stage artistes for stage lighting, stage craft, make-up and costume designing. For the year 2008 Hema Malini, the reno
wned cine and stage personality presented the 14th Chaman Lal Awards at Kamani recently followed as usual by a sound and light presentation conceived, designed and directed by R.K. Dhingra.
This year’s awardees were Shyamanand Jalan (Kolkata) for his overall contribution to theatre, T.V. Gopinathan (Calicut) for stage lighting received the R.K. Rasco (U.K.) award in association with Chaman Lal Memorial Society for excellence in stage lighting, Shveta Mahendra (Chandigarh) for costume design and Ashok Srivastava (New Delhi) for make-up.
The awards ceremony was followed by “Goonj” produced by Virinder Wadhwa and Davinder Wadhwa designed and directed by R.K. Dhingra and Santosh Nair overall in charge for choreography. As the curtain goes up against the morning rays, we see the symbol of Om, Ek Onkar, and the Christian Cross created with gobos to say, as it were, that religion and faith may be different but God is one. The message is created by the director entirely through the latest lighting techniques. The scene changes into a mannequin of a girl standing motionless. Enters another girl to project, as it were the mannequin’s soul to tell us something that happened in her life so much so that she hesitates to go home. It is indeed a touching story beautifully told through dance and song and well choreographed by Shailija Nalwali and danced along by Bhavani Misra against the background of “Laga Chunari mein Daagh”. The director once again uses laser and modern lighting techniques to create the ambience.
In the next scene “Echo of Love” the director uses no words but only music and dance to project the element of emotions in a starlit night, so much so that at times the audience feels the movement of the moon and the stars. To my mind, this was one of the most aesthetically handled scenes in the entire show.
The next number, “Sound of Joy” to me seemed as if it was an Arabian folk dance rendered by a group of boys and girls to celebrate a festival. No doubt, the lighting was colourful and so was the music but the presentation did not seem to involve the audience.
“Rhythematic” that followed was a two minute item based on vibrations of different sounds created with lighting, laser beams etc. It was colourful and helped in creating a three-dimensional effect of foot-tapping. Though the item was very short it will be long remembered by the audience.
“Ishq” that followed was yet another short item of about five minutes presented by the entire cast and choreographed by Bhavini Misra talks about legendary lovers like Noor Jahan, Shahjahan, Omar Khayyam. Also the Taj Mahal so relevant to the theme of love was projected on the cyclorama and the two walls of the auditorium. The music was most touching and relevant to the theme and the last number built around Sawan, the month of rain, covering the entire auditorium with clouds, rain and lightening will be long remembered.
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