Anita says...November 2022

 There is value only in those things

that burst forth from inspiration,
Which springs from
the irrational depths of our being
I delight in the barbaric and spontaneous
Elan of inspiration
Effervescent spiritual states,
Essential lyricism and inner tension
- Romanian philosopher EMIL CIORAN

Fresh from the exhilaration of completing 8 shows of THE JUNGLE BOOK in Palo Alto and Houston, I returned with a menu list of injuries... In spite of some fabulous reviews for my role as KAA the serpent in THE JUNGLE BOOK, I felt like a wounded soldier returned from battle. Feet sore, forehead swollen with acetone infection, tired, overweight and listless. Add Vertigo to that list and you can picture me flat on my back for 10 days! I have spent most of October recovering and literally putting my feet up. Sprains, twists, hairline fractures all take time to heal and nothing helps more than REST.

I did manage to see several shows (yes, I hobbled to and fro carefully) - Bharatanatyam only - and realised how much I had missed listening to good Carnatic music and watching Bharatanatyam in the ambience of my Alma Mater- Kalakshetra. This month I will focus on the performances I watched in Chennai and the questions that arose from the varied experiences.

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Interview - Vaibhav Arekar: Training in abhinaya and theatre make my nritta expressive - Shveta Arora

The natya element is very strong, even in your nritta. It’s not only the abhinaya which is talking, it’s also the nritta. So how do you explain your perspective? From what perspective do you conceptualize your pieces?

I think there are two things in my training which have had that effect. One is my abhinaya training with Dr. Kanak Rele. She comes from the Kerala tradition of abhinaya. We were established dancers already practising Bharatanatyam, but she wanted the abhinaya training to come from the Kerala tradition. So if you see the sancharis, they have an elaboration which is different, even in the way we enact them. I also trained in theatre with a friend when I did quite extensive dance theatre works. I did spoken theatre with dance, and we created a movement then. I see the drama in the dance. I like it. Even when it’s musical, I see the dance and I also like to see how the nritta emotes.

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Article - The Covid Conundrum - Ranee Kumar

Of late, classical performing arts are posing a challenge to the practitioners. The up and coming, younger crop of artistes are at crossroads. Passion be in its place but patronage and publicity - one on a pedestal and the other for a price - the young dancer is always at the doorstep of some organisation or promoter, pleading for an opening to prove her/his talent. This was the standard scenario till 2020. After which the entire dance fraternity went into a tizzy as Covid reared its hideous head, dealing a sort of death blow to dance performances. As if in defiance, the 2020s saw n number of online dances from gardens to terrace tops, kitchen to dining rooms, riversides, and sand dunes - everybody started dancing in every possible space and not just that! The recording with all its flaws would be uploaded as private videos or on YouTube and posted. That wasn't all either. The number of 'likes' and comments was the trophy to self-satiation. Not to be left behind were senior dancers holding round-table conferences on whatever issue came under the purview of dance. Teachers/gurus lost out on income Zoomed in with classes, a la academic style with all the pitfalls in tow. The bottomline was actually anxiety crisis of being quarantined indoors especially in a career that spelt out visibility on stage as one's identity. All this sustained for a year. The year that followed, viz., 2021 doused the initial flurry of activity as death tolls mounted due to the Delta wave and online private posts dwindled by the day. A few sustained but this time around the viewers got Covid fatigue!

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Central to Indian aesthetic and philosophical traditions is sringar in all its facets - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

A feature of the post Covid performance scene has been in the region of recently published books on dance. Close on the heels of Kathak Lok is Shringara in Classical Dance, brought out by Shubi Publications, edited by dancer/scholar Sharon Lowen. Its release function at the IIC Chattopadhyaya Multipurpose Hall drew a packed auditorium, and considering the all too often scanty audiences for dance performances, this kind of warm reception for book release evenings seems a bonanza.  The start had two young dancers presenting Ashtapadis, suffused with the varying moods of love, in the Odissi style - the first “Pashyati  dishi  dishi  rahasi  bhavantam” wherein the sakhi, describing the state of Radha at home, languishing for her Lord, and clinging to him in her fantasy, requests Krishna to meet her forthwith.” The second Ashtapadi presented by young Vishnunath Mangaraj “Dheera  sameere  Yamuna  teere  vasati  vane  vana  mali”, has the sakhi pleading Krishna’scase, describing to Radha forlorn Krishna’s eager wait, expecting and hoping in every soft leaf or feather falling to the ground, the gentle footstep of Radha. “Forego your pride and go to him.”

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Celebrating Gandhi Jayanti through Gandhi Leela - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

How refreshing and fitting to mark Gandhi Jayanti with a performance of Gandhi Leela, chiming with the Ram Leela festivities, celebrating the victory of good over evil! Conceived and directed by script writer Suranya Aiyar, a unique feature of the presentation by Bhagyam Arts and Ideas at Jawahar Bhavan, New Delhi, lay in the all-inclusive nature of the theme uniting people of all ages, young and old, while providing participating opportunities for every genre of talent, from the purely recitative, to different forms of music and dance, to puppetry to pantomime and what have you. And above all, coincidentally or by design, here was a broad blueprint, which through accommodating all types of performances can usher in variety, while remaining anchored to the theme of spreading the message of the Mahatma to all levels of society.

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Anita says...October 2022

For the jungle is large
The boy he is small
For the village is large
The people, they are small
For the world is large
And we are small
LET US THINK
....AND BE STILL

- Closing lines from the stage production
THE JUNGLE BOOK-RUDYARD REVISED

Having spent the entire month of September in California, totally immersed in the process-driven creation of the ambitious story of THE JUNGLE BOOK, I thought that this edition would focus on the insights and experiences gained from the project. Mowgli, the story of the boy in the jungle, though filled with colonialist land mines, has captured the imagination of readers, film and theatre makers throughout the 20th century and into the present day.

I have worked with PANGEA WORLD THEATRE in Minneapolis 25 years ago and watched how a fledgling South Asian theatre company slowly worked its way into the mainstream flow of the live arts. Every thought and act by founder/partners Dipankar Mukherjee and Meena Natarajan, was done with a view of becoming a force for change for people of colour, even before those terms BIPOC and other acronyms became popular. Today PANGEA is an award winning American theatre treasure house.

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Anubandh– Scintillating blend of collaborative inputs with performative excellence - Taalam: column by Leela Venkataraman

The HCL sponsored concert at Kamani auditorium, attracting Delhi’s art cognoscenti, featuring Malavika Sarukkai’s scintillating post-pandemic maiden offer Anubandh (meaning connectedness) could not have been better timed– coming as it did, after the harrowing period of forced isolation, with loneliness fracturing all relationships. And what better call to the transformative power of hope could there be, than one reclaiming man’s primordial relationship with the elements forming the world he lives in –viz the sun and the moon, Prithvi or earth providing the grounded security and living space, Apah or water sustaining life’s thirsts, Vayu wafting sweet nothings across space, fanning the fires of passion, Agni or fire destroying and igniting grief and Akash or space providing that release into vastness.

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