Dance as a means of educating society and helping the under-privileged youth has been less explored than one would like in our country, despite some worthy names — for example, Astad Deboo working with children of Salaam Balak Trust and a couple of excellent organisations working with physically and mentally challenged youth. So Sonal Mansingh’s initiative “Sahakaar” supported by the Ministry of Culture, involving the joint support of Little Star Children Home in Katni, Madhya Pradesh, run by an NGO Little Star Foundation, and New Delhi’s Divya Jyoti Cultural organisation and Social Welfare Society, mounted at Stein Auditorium, marks a welcome step. The thematic emphasis was on the girl child, challenged by gender restrictions further aggravating the disadvantaged background.
It was not so much movement virtuosity one looked for in the programme, as how the group of youngsters was harnessed to make a statement of hope and courage, triumphing over deprived circumstances. The opening invocation, sanctifying the stage offering homage to the moving cosmos and its elements, with children forming clockwise and anti-clockwise circles, was unhurried, neat and meditative, its creditably synchronised rendition endorsing ‘shanti.’
Trapped in societal coils hiding the world outside, emerging out of the morass to step into life outside is indeed a big step for these children. How does one open the windows of life, and what of the dreams of making a life for oneself escaping from these imprisoning rings? “Rimjhim Sa Sapna” took recourse to a great deal of symbolism, expressing ideas of how these untried young have to struggle through obstacles, discovering the way to survive and move ahead amidst unfriendly confusion and chaos outside. They resemble the lotus which, born in slush, grows out to such beauty when it blossoms. Props like veils held in front of the performers, moving with large keys held in hand and gestures representing the lotus were all used. Orderly formations, with astrologer, police, politician, doctor — all appearing in quick succession — one still felt that instead of such heavy reliance on the sound tape with dialogue and music, the actors with minimal moves could have been challenged more by choreographers Sonal and Sanjib Bhattacharya, not for a moment forgetting the problem in logistics of working with kids as far off as Katni. The lone young male participant moved with great confidence.
The tillana finale had the group holding simple postures or moving in geometrical formations. The main statement of the girl child crying out for freedom to make life choices was, in the interpretative item, based on Prasoon Joshi’s poem “Babul jiya mora ghabraye” — the words again a metaphor for personal freedom, the nayika pleading not to be given away in marriage to a goldsmith, caring neither for gold not jewellery. She would prefer instead to be wedded to the ironsmith whose skills can melt away the shackles binding her. Conceived in a dance theatre style, it was a good gesture by Sonal in sharing the stage by taking on the nayika’s abhinaya herself, with Bankim Sethi enacting the male role. Rather than a once only, publicised event, regular sessions with such children are needed with more established dancers making such activities part of their regular pursuits.
