Parampara Festival: Unusual jugalbandis of different regional genres of music and dance - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

It calls for more than the usual music/ dance program announcement to attract an audience for live programmes, during the pandemic. So, for the silver jubilee of the annual Parampara Festival mounted by Raja/Radha/Kaushalya Reddy's Natya Tarangini, established forty five years ago in New Delhi, was this year's unusual concept of jugalbandis comprising interactions of music, dance, percussion traditions, belonging to different regional genres. This opened out unexplored territories for artistic imagination - thereby luring audiences to the open air performance space with the galleried seating, in the home of the Reddys, braving Delhi's cold and pollution.

Normally, established singers or instrumentalists known to perform in solitary glory, are not inclined, even on special occasions, to sharing the stage with dancers in a jugalbandi. That reputed artists from the music world coordinated and worked with dancers, says something about the persuasive powers of Natya Tarangini. Also, economic hardships sustained during the pandemic by the less affluent among artists in particular, the sad loss of some of the greatest of singers and instrumentalists, along with having to live for months in lone splendour within the four walls of the home, have spurted a new sense of fellow feeling and a need for sharing.

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