october 2017 ON Stagevolume 7 • issue 3 NCPA Chairman Khushroo N. Suntook Executive Director & Council Member Deepak Bajaj Editorial Director Radhakrishnan Nair Contents Editor-in-Chief Oishani Mitra 18 Consulting Editor Ekta Mohta Senior Sub-Editor Cynthia Lewis Editorial Co-ordinator Hilda Darukhanawalla Art Director Amit Naik Deputy Art Directors Hemali Limbachiya Tanvi Shah Graphic Designer Vidhi Doshi Advertising Anita Maria Pancras ([email protected]; 66223820) Tulsi Bavishi ([email protected]; 9833116584) Senior Digital Manager Jayesh V. Salvi Published by Deepak Bajaj for The National Centre for the Performing Arts, NCPA Marg, Nariman Point, Mumbai – 400021 Produced by Editorial Office 4th Floor, Todi Building, Mathuradas Mills Compound, Senapati Bapat Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai - 400013 Printer Spenta Multimedia, Peninsula Spenta, Features Mathuradas Mill Compound, N. M. Joshi Marg, Lower Parel, Mumbai – 400013 08 14 Materials in ON Stage cannot be reproduced Reflections Western classical music at the NCPA in part or whole without the written On ‘contemporary’ music. By Anil Dharker In this new series, we go behind-the-scenes of the permission of the publisher. Views and several arts departments at the NCPA. This month, opinions expressed in this magazine are not we talk to Mr. Khushroo N. Suntook, Chairman at necessarily those of the publisher. All rights 10 the NCPA reserved. From a Dancer to a Choreographer Odissi dancer Aruna Mohanty and Bharatanatyam dancer Chitra NCPA Booking Office Visweswaran on the unacknowledged 18 2282 4567/6654 8135/6622 3724 From Strength to Strength intellectual effort that goes into www.ncpamumbai.com The Lithuanian National Symphony Orchestra has translating ideas into rhythmic motion. been active on the music festival circuit in Europe and By Shayonnita Mallik Contents.indd 4 21/09/17 4:00 PM 22 beyond for over seven decades. put on a stage performance. Ahead of its performances at the By Arwa Mamaji NCPA, we take a look at how the orchestra has carried forward its 28 rich heritage. By Beverly Pereira 34 Beer Puppets at the NCPA A jazz band with an exotic name, 22 Beer Puppets was founded by Romancing the Hills vocalist Shreya Bhattacharya and Composer Shantanu Moitra’s 100- bassist Abhishek Dey, and will take day journey across the Himalayas the stage this month has inspired a few sublime compositions. By Rinky Kumar 35 Comédie-Française at the 26 NCPA The Interview: Amit Peled The legendary Comédie-Française, From the United States to which counts Molière among Europe to the Middle East and its former members, will screen Asia, Israeli cellist Amit Peled French plays with English subtitles is one of the most exciting instrumentalists on the concert stage today 36 The Tradition of Kuchipudi Dance-dramas 28 Dr. Sunil Kothari traces the history of The New Guard the Kuchipudi dance-dramas Follow us on: Marathi cinema’s brave new voice is best encapsulated in the NCPA’s facebook.com/NCPAMumbai annual Marathi film festival, Nave 38 @NCPAMumbai Valan. By Reshma O. Pathare Programme Guide NCPAMumbai All of October’s events at the NCPA youtube.com/user/TheNCPAMumbai1 32 pinterest.com/ncpamumbai The Clock is Ticking 49 An experiment in theatre takes What’s Next place at the NCPA this month, in What to look forward to in the which each artiste gets 12 hours to coming months We look forward to your feedback and suggestions. Please do drop us an email at [email protected]. Contents.indd 6 21/09/17 4:00 PM COVER STORY Aruna Mohanty and her troupe From a Dancerto a Choreographer Odissi dancer Aruna Mohanty and Bharatanatyam dancer Chitra Visweswaran on the unacknowledged intellectual effort that goes into translating ideas into rhythmic motion. By Shayonnita Mallik Chitra Visweswaran and her troupe Visweswaran says. “One moment A dance performance the wings, looking for moments an idea clicks into your head and encompasses the best of so many that may go wrong. Visweswaran, then there is no stopping.” To factors: lighting, costume, makeup, on the other hand, tries to watch compose the stage placement of music and stage design, which are all her compositions with a neutral characters, and different routines all as important as rhythm and eye. “When they do well, there for different dancers that merge movement. Choreographers have is a sense of pride. I watch a into one central theme is a daunting to think of every aspect and, with performance with detachment. task. Mohanty breaks it down for the help of technicians, realise I switch off my knowledge of me, “I write the screenplay in my their vision. Visweswaran, who has the piece completely. Could the head – scene by scene, frame worked extensively with the late dancers convey the message – is by frame, and then pitch it to my lighting technician Tapas Sen, says, all I ask myself.” music composers. I enact it in “Lighting makes the dance [look] Consumed by research and front of them; do the entire thing like a Renaissance painting.” construction, these creators find like a drama; and looking at my themselves locked in rooms for mannerisms, my body language, hours, tying hand gestures with my face, they translate it into music. philosophy. 2 AM calls to sarangi It all fits then.” “The more you read, Much like writers players and candlelight readings the more you think, the more you and composers, to cement ideas are the aspects of compose, and the more you also dance choreography that most of obsess,” chuckles Visweswaran, inspiration for us don’t see. We simply come, fill reminiscing about the time she did theatres, marvel at the connections a production on Panchali. “I was dancers is serious the dancers make, hear the beat, possessed. I went around with my business sway to the music, and beam at the hair wild, questioning and asking, beauty and simplicity of their art – picking fights with people, and never once wondering from which calling out patriarchy.” minds came the ink that coloured Mohanty talks about movement, Cutting the cord the alta on their hands. But then, s an audience The first step Chidambaram Academy of Fine and interlinks it to the shape of the Pieces that are so carefully and perhaps that’s fitting, it is member, seated For Padma Shri Aruna Mohanty, Arts in Chennai, the transition stage for the performance. It could constructed must be difficult to every choreographer’s dream in a dimmed administrator of Orissa Dance was more inherent. Visweswaran be a proscenium, a circular space handover to other performers. to create blemish-free pieces theatre watching Academy, the journey from composed her first original piece or an amphitheatre, which must Mohanty says, “When I am that only speak, never falter or the graceful being just a dancer to becoming at the age of nine as a “new thing be utilised perfectly to match the standing there in the wings, I am stop; that they simply remain the movements of a choreographer began with a for a family performance”. Her theme. Visweswaran gives me yet totally anxious, totally stressed, magical physical manifestations of beautiful dancers, tragedy. The 1999 Odisha cyclone first large-scale group production another interpretation of space totally nervous. I feel like I must their most private thoughts. one feels like they themselves had ravaged over 16 lakh houses and came almost 20 years later with that a choreographer must think be there to salvage the situation.” Acould take flight, make music with claimed over 9,000 lives. After a her maiden choreography. At of: the silences in music; the space Students call her a “dissatisfied Nakshatra Dance Festival will take their feet. Impressed, exhilarated dialogue with school students who the time, she was occupied with between lyrics. soul” as they see her peer through place from 27th to 29th October. and heady, it is easy to forget the questioned why dance seemed to teaching and wanted to create complexity of deliberation that be only about mythology, she was something that would inspire her Parwati Dutta must have gone into producing a moved and inspired to create her teenage students and afford them and her troupe beautiful concept with movement. an opportunity to showcase their This month for the Nakshatra talents. The result was Devi Ashta Dance Festival, five exemplary “Lighting makes Rasa Malika, a ballad on the eyes choreographers, three of whom of Indian goddesses as described are Padma Shri awardees, will the dance [look] by famous poets in different present group choreographies languages. on the NCPA stage. Dancers par like a Renaissance But this leap from dancer to excellence, each of them has painting” creator was no easy task. Both made the journey from being Visweswaran and Mohanty solely a dancer to becoming a enlighten me on the immense choreographer, from thinking interpretation of the devastation. research that goes into the just about their role to thinking Her guru, Padma Shri Gangadhar production of a single piece. “If about everyone’s, from thinking Pradhan, was not pleased. If the I pick up two lines from Valmiki, just about their piece to thinking customary stories of Radha- I need to read so much more to about the whole piece. These Krishna had been good enough understand the context and how choreographers are Kathak dancer for him and all their predecessors, I can actually flesh the thought Parwati Dutta, Bharatanatyam why weren’t they good enough for out through my body,” says dancer Chitra Visweswaran, Odissi her? Mohanty’s Shrishti O Pralay Visweswaran. It all lies, really, in the dancer Aruna Mohanty, Odissi went on to win critical acclaim, and moment of inspiration. Much like dancer Daksha Mashruwala, and eventually, her guru’s approval.