The Gift of the Outdoors the Gift of the Outdoors
Total Page:16
File Type:pdf, Size:1020Kb
November 2020 ® ON Stagevolume 10 • issue 4 THETHE GIFTGIFT OFOF THETHE OUTDOORSOUTDOORS IN ADDITION TO ITS DIGITAL INITIATIVES, THE NCPA EXPLORES ITS SPRAWLING OPEN SPACES TO WELCOME YOU BACK SAFELY Chairman’s Note o say the last few months were an unusual experience, especially for the performing art world, would be a T momentous understatement. It shows to what extent we are susceptible to the power of nature to enrich, humble, elevate and also crush our hopes and ambition, and yet emerge innovative and inspirational. When the lockdown was first announced, we thought that this was a temporary phenomenon and there was no need for an organisational change, and we carried on as usual expecting that we would return to work soon, based on optimistic dates given to us. Unfortunately, those dates never fructified and now it seems we are in for a longer haul than expected, and any management worth its salt must arrange to adapt. For us at the NCPA, initial depression is being replaced by a growing confidence in functioning from home with forays to the office. If there was to be a shift towards managerial competence, to effectively work from home, certain infrastructure has to be created, nay evolved and executed, to the best of our ability. An investment into the future of programming and the shape and style it will take is by itself an expensive exercise. In spite of all halls being empty and space staring at us with nary a penny in sight, you have to create an audience through the electronic media. I frankly do not feel it is a good substitute because nothing can take the place of a live performance, but we need to move into this digital space by employing the best brains to help us seamlessly make the shift. We have engaged a prize-winning filmmaker and documentary expert and we hope that with the wealth of material available, a reasonable amount of income can be generated by utilising all kinds of electronic streaming reproduction on our website, of our archival and modern performances and changing the manner in which we attend concerts. It is also time we started looking at utilising our various spaces, including the outdoors, for performances in the winter months. The details are in this issue of the ON Stage. There is nothing like being there in the flesh. Since you do not notice the inflections, you do not notice the reactions and most of all, you have to take cold-blooded distances. But, Hobson’s choice. Khushroo N. Suntook NCPA Chairman Khushroo N. Suntook Editorial Director Radhakrishnan Nair Editor Snigdha Hasan Consulting Editor Contents Vipasha Aloukik Pai 13 22 32 Editorial Co-ordinator Keeping up with The Music Will Go On How Modern India Reinvented 32 Hilda Darukhanawalla 18 Copyright As countries gradually lift restrictions, Classical Dance In a world in which it has become easier to believe that In the first of a two-part series, Art Director consuming culture the enriching experience of attending eminent public intellectual Jawhar Tanvi Shah through digital platforms a live concert is not a distant reality. Sircar takes a look at the evolution is becoming increasingly Gauthier Herrmann, who founded the of ancient Indian dance forms that Associate Art Director ubiquitous, performers and Artie’s Festival in collaboration with accentuated classical traditions while Hemali Limbachiya content creators need to the NCPA, tells us how his chamber also reconditioning them for Associate Art Director learn the dos and don’ts of music ensemble has been adapting to modern India. Nandkishor Sawant an entirely new landscape. the situation. The NCPA has organised a By Beverly Pereira Graphic Designers workshop, to be conducted 35 Gautami Dave by Advocate Sanjay Kaleidoscope Sanjana Suvarna Kher, that addresses the 25 Your window to the latest in the Advertising practicalities of the digital The Eternal Sound of Music performing arts across India and Anita Maria Pancras world of the performing arts. In moments of social confinement, the world. ([email protected]; 66223835) art, once again, is our companion, Tulsi Bavishi like it has been in war and peace, ([email protected]; 9833116584) 14 sickness and health. 36 The Sound of Dissent By Snigdha Hasan Winter Fiesta Senior Digital Manager A sense of liberation is woven This Diwali, the NCPA is bringing Jayesh V. Salvi into the very fabric of jazz, a wide variety of live, interactive as is evident in the role it has 28 workshops for children of all ages. Produced by played in social movements of Moments of Note the past. Today, the discourse Eminent Indian dance historian, around racial inequality in scholar and critic Sunil Kothari writes 42 Editorial Office America is louder than ever, about the memorable moments A Crisis Captured 4th Floor, Todi Building, and the genre, often pollinated he experienced during a lifelong As the Piramal Gallery at the NCPA Mathuradas Mills Compound, Senapati Bapat Marg, Features with contemporary popular association with the NCPA. prepares to host an exhibition Lower Parel, music, still expresses strains of that documents the city battling a Mumbai - 400013 anger and frustration, hope pandemic, we bring you glimpses of and pride of an entire people 30 what photographers from Mumbai Printer 06 in the face of repression. On a Literary Note witnessed through their lenses. Spenta Multimedia, Peninsula Spenta, Reflections By Beverly Pereira From encyclopaedias and biographies Mathuradas Mill Compound, Music and the brain. to tomes on pedagogy and online N. M. Joshi Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai – 400013 By Anil Dharker resources, Dr. Suvarnalata Rao, 46 18 Programming Head - Indian Music at the The Performing Arts Dispatch Materials in ON Stage® cannot be In Perfect Consonance NCPA, recommends essential reading to A series on performing arts venues reproduced in part or whole without the 08 While the dictionary meaning widen your understanding of and delve from around the world. In focus this written permission of the publisher. Views A Drive for the Arts of bandish is ‘restriction’, in deeper into the genre. month: The Royal Albert Hall. and opinions expressed in this magazine Socially distanced seating, pre-concert the world of Indian classical are not necessarily those of the publisher. disinfectant mists, music-enhancing face music, a time-honoured All rights reserved. Follow us on: masks, state-of-the-art drive-in concerts bandish is a composition that facebook.com/NCPAMumbai NCPA Booking Office – the pandemic has got us thinking is fixed, yes, but in the sense 2282 4567/6654 8135/6622 3724 on our feet. Richard Nowell, technical that it provides a well-trodden @NCPAMumbai www.ncpamumbai.com consultant to the NCPA and other path paved by the masters. @NCPAMumbai international organisations, recounts Musicologist Meena Banerjee his first-hand experience of making decodes the nuances of youtube.com/user/TheNCPAMumbai1 the English National Opera’s Drive & the bandish, and explains THE METROPOLITAN MUSEUM OF ART, NEW YORK, FLETCHER FUND, (LEFT);1996 SHUTTERSTOCK (RIGHT) Live a top-notch sonic event and how why some are timeless and the learnings can be put to use in our unchangeable, while others We look forward to your feedback and suggestions. Please do drop us an outdoor spaces. can be effortlessly pliable. email at [email protected]. OPINION Reflections Music and the brain. By Anil Dharker International research is of three pressure levels. It worked particularly kinds: scientific, science-fictionish and well with patients with dementia and vacuous. Possibly belonging to the second clinical depression. Many hospitals also category is recent work at MIT which use music to ease anxiety levels during used AI (artificial intelligence) to turn surgery and to relieve postoperative the Coronavirus into classical music. This pain. As a clincher, Harvard neurologist is done, according to Professor Markus J. Gottfried Schlaug found that the brains Buehler, to better understand the virus. of adult musicians had more grey matter Researchers assigned each amino acid – than those of non-musicians. the building block of the spiked protein On behalf of non-musicians who love of the virus – a unique musical note. music, I would like to make the point An algorithm then converted the notes that serious listening too results in an to music. The first part of the resulting intense activation of both the left and right musical composition is soothing as the hemispheres of the brain. I also know spiked protein eases into our unsuspecting from personal experience that music helps cells. As the virus replicates and the memory: ask me to give you the lyrics of protein binds to more cells, the music, we pop songs of my teenage years and I will are told, turns dramatic and tumultuous, be lost; ask me to sing them, and I will so we go from tinkling harmonics to a remember every word from 50 years ago. clashing and stormy finale. It is a pity there are limits to these things Buehler hopes this will help develop To get the legislation passed, Governor otherwise a chemistry student could rattle antibodies by taking a musical Miller played Beethoven’s ‘Ode to Joy’ to off the periodic table set to rap. counterpoint to the virus’s melody and legislators and said, “Now don’t you feel All these theories have resulted in music rhythm, and use AI to find an antibody smarter already?” being put to some unusual uses. A cattle- that matches it. The composition is one Sadly, more rigorous research showed breeder in Turkey first found that playing hour and 50 minutes long, so a nice that these findings were mythical: classical music increased the milk yield concert length, but it is unlikely to Mozart is magic but his music does of his cows.