An unusual offering

The Other Festival, which opened yesterday, has changed the profile, perception and public outreach of the arts, states ASHISH KHOKAR.

IT TOOK one festival - The Other Festival - to break the hegemony of traditional arts in Chennai, the citadel of Carnatic music and Bharatanatyam. The Other festival precedes the mad, mad-ras season of dance and music and in its two years run, this annual offering by dancer-activist-publisher Anita Ratnam and designer Ranvir Shah, has changed the very profile, perception and public outreach of the arts.

The Other Festival has also helped revive the unused Egmore Museum Theatre hall, a museum-piece in itself! The place now hums with artistic activities and the evenings appear mela-like with book sales, artistes gushing over each other and audience rushing to book seats. That the audiences are actually willing to pay, spoilt as they are in the most metros by the free-invite culture, shows how there are takers for anything professionally mounted. The audience interface with performers, every evening, is a great opportunity to learn and interact.

The Other Festival opened with an offering by Jaimini Pathak's theatre group from Mumbai which offered insights into contemporary India with the play ``Curfew''. Today, Akram Khan, a Bangladeshi settled in England, will take the stage. This dynamic talent trained by Pratap Pawar, is bound to chart a new course. Pratap Pawar, the first male gandda-bandh disciple of maestro Birju Maharaj, shone as a star in India before taking Kathak to places as far as Trinidad and Guyana. He finally settled in London where under the aegis of Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, he single-handedly (or with his solid footwork!) created a niche for Kathak in a country full of Bharatanatyam fans. Remember, Londoners had seen the art of such greats as Ram Gopal among others, so from the 1940s until the 1970s the dance of South India ruled the minds and hearts of the locals.

In Akram Khan's art, the quick-silver chakras of Kathak and mathematical precision of his tatkars and toddes (footwork's) manifest. How this dance dynamo will merge tradition with contemporary statement is the reason why this festival has gained so much popularity from within the artistic community, in addition to winning new audiences for the arts.

Sometimes isolation helps. ``Far from the madding crowd'' is not only Thomas Hardy's mantra but Veenapani Chawla's too.

A displaced-from-Punjab-settled-in Mumbai theatre talent, she left the rat-race and pace of Mumbai for the quiet of Pondicherry and there in splendid isolation, interrupted only by the sounds of chants from the ashram of Aurobindo (whose follower she is) and the wide, wide sea, she creates works which are calm and centred.

Her earlier work ``Savitri'', based on Sribindo's (that's how ashramites call him!) immortal work, used only one performer - Mita Vashisht - to create a work which stated everthing - the power of prose, poetry and philosophy behind his work. In ``Brahnala'' elements of Koodiyattam were used giving this languishing form a new life. She brings to this festival a new work, ``Ganapati''.

Other participants in this year's festival include the Sapphire Dance Creations of Calcutta, Hari Krishnan from Canada and Peter Chin from China. When there's dance, can music be far behind? Music is not left behind in this week-long event and from Auroville (where else?) comes the neo-fusion group named after the commune. On the concluding day, Aruna Sayeeram of Mumbai collaborates with the French, Dominique Vellard.

To think that the best of Odissi is not in India but in Malaysia, reflects how our arts are truly turning global. Ramli Ibrahim is a Muslim in search of moksha (the traditional concluding item in Odissi repertoire).

His impeccable training in the Deba Prasad Das style has helped him become one of the greatest exponents of Odissi. His contemporary works too are extremely polished. His first-rate professional dance-theatre company makes his art one of the most sought after the world-over.

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