Wednesday, September 30, 2015

Torobaka

It was a series of recommendations that built up my excitement to look forward to this dance show staged at Mutha hall. It all started with Anita Ratnam recommending it over the course of a discussion on 'writing on the Arts' hosted by Apparao galleries. i kind of fixed my date with the show on that day. 

Then came Karthika Nair's turn to sound the excitement on over a reading of her book 'Until The Lions'. She also dropped the info that Akram Khan was working on staging the 'Amba- Sikandi' part of her work, scheduled to begin next year. 

All this coupled with a little reading on Akram Khan's works made me look eagerly forward to the show. From my little research on his works i found him very willing to collaborate with other happening artists and create interesting new art.

The evening of the Show itself turned to be a blessing to be able to see all people committed to and involved in performing arts gather under one roof. 

Now, writing about the performance itself, i should say that i am writing this almost a week after watching the performance, so i am digging out what stayed in mind. i should say i was transfixed on AK right from the word start, may be the build up and the excitement did me in. But there is no denying the effect of his presence on the stage. He was like a huge mass wrapping the stage around himself by the sheer gravity of the combined prowess of his style, grace and talent.

The precursors to the show had very much lead me to expect a dialogue between Flamenco and Kathak dance forms on stage. The dialogues we are used to seeing are where each form holds its ground and is out to prove its superiority over the other. But here it was a true dialogue that was happening between the two forms. There were moments when the forms said 'hello' to each other, felt irked by the other, competed with the other, tried to better the other, mellowed down and courted the other and just made their own clear statements in their own individualistic way.

The beauty of the show was that the dialogue was not just restricted to the dance forms, rather it transcended it and it was nice to see a subtle cross dialogue in the sidelines between the two genres of music that accompany these dance forms. the extension was a very natural progression.

The Flamenco performance exuded a certain manliness, rawness, power and was kind of emphatic in terms of hard tapping on specially laid wooden platforms and the music that accompanied it had a very folk feel to it. on the other hand Kathak exuded a feminine grace, style and an embracing nature while standing its ground and the music accompanying it had very classical and structured nature. 

though the bipolar nature of the performance was deducible i wished i had known that Toro meant bull and vaca meant cow. i wish i had known that the performance drew its inspiration from a poem by Tristan Tzara. i believe i would have appreciated performance better with some extra research. i cant say what and how much i have missed. 

i cant thank Prakriti foundation enough for bring such wonderful shows to our city, Phenomenal indeed..