Last time when dancer Ananda Shankar Jayant and her team of dancers performed ‘Kavyanjali, An Ode to Tagore’ in Hyderabad as part of Tagore’s 150th anniversary celebrations, they left an indelible stamp on the audience. Now, as she along with her team of 20 dancers gets ready to stage the production on Friday, she promises an unforgettable experience for dance lovers. Kavyanjali traces the impact of Rabindranath Tagore on Telugu writers, and their poetry. “It will juxtapose an anthology of Tagore’s poetry with a selection of similar, comparable Telugu poetry by Devullapalli Krishna Sastry, Rayaprolu Subba Rao and the poet duo of Balantrapu Venkata Rao and Oleti Parvateesam, showcasing a synergy of themes, thoughts and ideas in Telugu poetry of the early 20th century inspired by Gurudev,” she points out.
The production has been created in collaboration with Tagore scholar, Partha Ghose and renowned Telugu scholar and writer Mrunalini Chunduri, with music by Sathiraju Venumadhav, for the Telugu poetry, Dolan Banerjee for Rabindra Sangeet. While speaking about the reason to revisit the production, Ananda says, “I always like to revisit choreographies, as the process of creativity is continuous and on going,” she states and continues, “The poetry of Tagore and the Telugu poetry is very inspiring , and this time a larger group of dancers will perform, with only one dancer and me from the previous presentation. More choreographic elements have been added, enriching the production further. It was a great learning experience for the young group of dancers to understand the nuances of poetry and music and translate it into the idiom of classical dance. With Kavyanjali , they are outside the usual paradigms and narratives of classical dance. New metaphors are explored and that is what even the youngest dancer learns to relate to, to own the music.. both Rabindra Sangeet and Carnatic music and live the poetry.” The earlier performance had received rave reviews and was also staged at Santiniketan. “We had Tagore scholars and Bengalis praise the production.” While the original choreography had six dancers, this production has 20 dancers! “That itself changes the choreography immensely. More dancing elements ,” she smiles.
The rehearsals for staging the production on Friday have been on for the last month. “While the framework is in place, we don't have the stress of a premiere. Now it will be the stress of ensuring that the young team delivers on the changes in choreography and performance.”
( Kavyanjali - an ode to Gurudev will be staged at Ravindra Bharati on August 26 at 7pm)
