Sharmila Biswas goes beyond traditional ideas to come up with a colourful spectacle
Renowned Odishi dancer and founder, Odissi Vision and Movement Centre,
Kolkata, Sharmila Biswas’s Aim for Seva fundraiser, ‘Antar-Yatra, the
Journey Within,’ was breathtakingly beautiful. It brought together three
classical dance forms — Odishi, Kuchipudi and Bharatanatyam — to
present a spiritual journey into the inner world of the women dancers of
India. It was part-mythological, part-historical, part-narrative, part-
abstract visualisation that was sumptuously colourful and dramatic on
the outside and layered with nuances inside.
Sharmila as a de-glamorised and elusive presence anchored the show while
the vibrant lead dancers, Lakshmi Parthasarathy Athreya
(Bharatanatyam), Amrita Lahiri (Kuchipudi) and Shashwati Garai Ghosh
(Odishi) provided the collective energy of the dancing community.
Dance, music and narration, most often in first person as the dancer’s
voice, flowed together uninterrupted for about 100 minutes.
The opening was a well-coordinated piece wherein the young dancers came
together representing their respective styles while resonating with the
others. From the contemporary, ‘Antar-Yatra’ travelled back in time to
the Puranic Age and the churning of the ocean, when apsaras, the
celestial dancers, appeared. The supporting dancers, now churning the
ocean to tribal beats and now as beautiful apsaras drenched in rich,
blue lighting, filled the space with energy, as Sharmila, the narrator,
watched in awe. The narration summed it up: “I believed in the apsara.
We did. She did. It flowered, filled my heart…”
From the mythological genesis of the dancers, it moved to a historical
perspective with the devadasis; the lead dancers were now in plain,
draped costumes. ‘… lifelong bondage, lifelong freedom… wife of god…I am
the chosen one… Allow me to write my name in your heart…’ Sharmila
entered with a life-sized puppet to, ‘Munnavane,’ a song asking the
devadasis a piercing question: ‘When you have the lord opening his arms
for you, would you still go after this ordinary man? When the magical
world awaits you, would you still go after the mundane?’ The dancers
agonised when asked to choose — the spiritual highpoint of the
programme, really. The tone turned religious with a sloka, ‘Hare
Murare’. Such powerful words and images peppered ‘Antar-Yatra.’ The
dancers’ exploration of their individual journeys in creativity was a
vibrant, fluid sequence, perhaps a bit longer than ideal and a bit more
abstract than comprehensible, but the outstanding music (Srijan
Chatterjee), the innovative props of bamboo blinds dressed up or down
with jute and colour drapes (Nandagopal Jana) and the rich lighting
(Ramesh Jena) were enough for the rasikas. The artistry in every
microcosmic aspect of the production was to be savoured.
One of the many memorable scenes was in the Kuchipudi sequence. As the
woman sits dejected after imagining the Raaslila, she hears soft rhythm.
It lights a spark in her and she springs to life. All at once, the dark
stage came alive with reams of yellow cloth held diagonally across and
enveloped in yellow lights; Amrita performed a crisp rhythmic sequence
in between the drapes in a poetic visual.
As one dancer took inspiration from colours, another (Lakshmi) took
inspiration from sounds. In her journey towards God, the dancer was
enervated by sringara, love, as she lost herself in the dance (Paraju
thillana), creativity springing from raindrops, animals, et al, until
she found the energy from meditation on the Kundalini Chakra.
Whether the context was clear or not, there was an underlying subtext
relating to the dancer. If Rama’s hunt for Mareecha in the Odishi
segment (Shashwati) could be taken as a man’s quest for the
unattainable, a journey towards god, could be extrapolated as a journey
in creativity as a dancer found herself.
Art as God and vice-versa are the goals in the never-ending journey
towards the unattainable. The final piece referenced this philosophy. ‘I
discard the frivolous… In many forms, in many faces... You laugh at me
and say, Sundari why do you walk past me?’ Sharmila, more austere, if
possible, in a plain green sari and black blouse, placed puppets of
Krishna over every screen on a dimly lit stage to a soulful rendition of
‘Sundari kahe mohe sambhasi na jasi’ (Vidyapati) in the background.
Action moved to the foreground, where the austerely dressed dancers
mirrored the meditative quiet. They described Radha’s physical and
emotional surrender to Krishna in the Jayadeva Ashtapadi, ‘Sakhi he.’
“When the time comes, I will be waiting by the roadside, threading the
garland which I started so very long…” So the journey continues…
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