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Myriad reflections of Darpana

LEELA VENKATARAMAN

Mallika Sarabhai's productions defy definition. A review of the Vikram Sarabhai International Arts Festival held recently in Delhi.

NO STEREO TYPES Dayenne Mrinalini Sarabhai and (below) daughter Mallika seen in "Staying Alive" performed in New Delhi. PHOTO: SANDEEP SAXENA

There are no stylised versions of universal situations: no stereotypical concessions to convention. If anything, Mallika Sarabhai's productions defy categorisation, for her total theatre expressions voicing contemporary concerns live on their own terms in unblinking candour - take it or leave it. The three-day Darpana Academy festival at the Habitat offered bewildering variety. The curtain raiser of "Hot Talas Cool Rasas" in a Kalari, Bharatanatyam, Modern Dance mix, in a range of moods, with music from L. Subramaniam to Indian Ocean tunes, left this writer utterly disappointed. Good ideas never quite lived up to their potential in the itsy bitsy items. The performance was lacking in uniformly taut-bodied dancers matching choreographer/dancer D. Padmakumar's easy and untarnished movement lines. The almost casual air and bonhomie appeared overdone. And so much of modern dancing seemed to have blunted the immaculate geometry of even Mallika's Bharatanatyam movements, as seen in numbers like Tattukazhi where the 3,4,5,7,9 arithmetic of rhythmic combinations was explored in an unusual manner.

Macabre theme

Erasing all the disappointment of the previous evening was the production `Staying Alive' - despite its rather macabre theme of why and how the urge to live gets extinguished in some people, who unable to face the challenges of life, seek a suicidal end. Revolving round archetypes representing different walks of life, each engulfed in searing loneliness and despair, with the setting sun becoming preferable to the effulgence of the rising sun, death appears as the better option. It could be the young girl denied the space to be ordinary by proud parents, a young Flamenco dancer disillusioned in love, the housewife stifled by daily routine, the young man behind his times finding "language is not what he uses to describe the world with, but what the world uses to describe him" - every frame captured through quick-moving dancing cameos. D. Padmakumar stretched on his tummy spinning like a top, Mrinalini Sarabhai doing a Bharatanatyam jig at her age, the delightful Flamenco dancer - barring a couple of sagging scenes, all were strong images. And right through, Dame Suicide in the shape of Mallika intervenes to lure people into her embrace. Shivani Tibrewala's powerful script provided the starting point - but the overdose of poetry did not allow for silences where the dance could speak for itself.

Pulling no punches

Bold as brass and pulling no punches was the last day's production of `Western Woman' a brilliant collaboration between Italian Director Rita Maffei and choreographer Mallika. There she was with her pet peeves, inside her enormous mosquito net, insulated from disease, poverty and deprivation of the East, cocooned in her high consumerist world of Coca Cola and hot dog. But the `Western body' of Rita and the `Eastern Body' of Mallika while carrying the cultural memory of diversity in language, race, habits, etc., share the human essence which beneath apparent differences can still meet, exemplified in Mallika's dance to Haendel's music. Dependent on high technology, which, despite the late availability of the auditorium worked flawlessly, Yadavan Chandran's vibrant video projected on the muslin of the mosquito net and an impressive sound track, along with Rita's acting and Mallika's interventions made for a strong statement.

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