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Savitha Sastry in 'The Prophet' |
A blog so close in heels to an earlier blog – this is a
first for us! But, with our most
ambitious show yet just around the corner, thoughts and ideas cross the minds
of our team all the time. We
channel such meandering thoughts into classified subjects on this blog. Our last one was about the script. This one is about the dance.
‘The Prophet’ (and ‘Soul Cages’ and ‘YUDH’ before this) was
conceived to make a point to the audience at large that Bharathanatyam is well
capable of holding anyone’s attention as good cinema is. We have also pointed out before in
these blogs and in interviews that this artform is too precious to be closeted
amongst the miniscule coterie oblivious of the 1.2 billion people in India at
large! Bharathanatyam is not
confined to dance aficionados, nor should it be the domain of any religion,
nationality, gender, or age.
Something as beautiful as this needs to be accessible to all. With this end in view we created
choreographies around novel stories not based on any given parameter. The results validated our beliefs.
‘The Prophet’ is a story told through the art of
Bharathanatyam. It is meant to be
a holistic experience and not dissected apart with the now (in)famous
check-list that dance aficionados attend traditional shows with. The experience will not allow for you
to pick out points such as – how much Mathematics was involved, how many jathis
(specific sequences of pure dance) were executed, or what Karanas were
manipulated and how! What it will
do is give you an experience you are unlikely to forget in a long time.
Our productions have been always a mix of dance and
theatre. Sometimes, because it is promoted
as a Bharathanatyam concert, the audience is surprised to see elements from
dramatics in the show. In its
truest sense Bharathanatyam was always meant to be dance theatre; the genesis
of the word ‘natyam’ suggests that.
The use of voiceovers spoken by theatre artists may appear novel to
viewers of traditional repertoire; but in its original form Bharathanatyam is
meant to communicate using dance and theatre. It is boundaries placed by two generations of dancers that
makes it seem as though we are breaking rules. There were never any rules!
In a traditional show, a ten-minute absence of an audience
member does not mean much lost for the viewer. You could even arrive at the second half and be completely
part of the show from that point onwards.
Miss ten minutes of ‘The Prophet’ and you will lose track of the
story. We promise to keep you
engaged the entire time. This is
not a show where we ask you to leave your brains at home, as some shows/cinema
do. But, if you come with no
pre-conceived notions of what to expect from a traditional concert, the show
will startle you. No, we are not
breaking tradition. We are
re-defining it.
It is easy to dismiss the whole enterprise as catering to
the west. We cater to everybody – west included because we don’t believe
Bharathanatyam is the strangle hold of God’s chosen few. Furthermore, if there is a positive
influence on a product to be gained from anywhere, be it North, West, East, or
South, we will take it. It is the
audience who gains no matter what the naysayers say.
Shed your notions and break open the boxes. The experience only adds. Never detracts.
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