While Puducherry’s go-to venue of performing arts, Gandhi Thidal, offers a suitable space, it is not adequate for high-quality productions in music, dance and theatre, feels Odissi exponent Rekha Tandon.
Ms. Tandon, a recipient of the UNESCO-Aschberg Bursaries for Artists Programme, runs the Dance Routes Repertory Group near Auroville.
For the audience to experience ‘rasa’ with complete involvement of all the senses, a good venue which complements the production is necessary and Puducherry is lacking in this area, says Ms. Tandon.
“A good venue will unlock doors here in Puducherry. Many of the performances that take place in Chennai, at venues like the Music Academy, can then be brought here. It would interest performing art companies to come to Puducherry,” she notes.
Ms. Tandon performed an Odissi piece, Yatra , with Purnachandra Maharana, Kaalucharan Biswal, Bappi Malik and Kashinath Pradhan, who are Gotipua dancers from Odisha, and Aurovilian Shrishti Dangi at Auroville on Thursday.
Yatra has been designed to be performed at the Foundation Day Celebrations of the Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Heritage (INTACH) in New Delhi on January 27.
Ms. Tandon has worked for several years with Gotipua dancers, training them in Odissi, while working on the INTACH-supported Raghurajpur Lila Project, Puri district, Odisha.
Yatra , a tribute to the sources of classical Odissi dance, made use of indigenous material like a Lord Ganesha folk mask and put to effective display a backdrop of art work by artists from Raghurajpur village, which complemented the dance. “Using a backdrop of paintings with text translated in English helps classical dance reach out to a wider audience,” says Ms. Tandon.
The five-piece set included a solo by Ms. Tandon inspired from the Gita Govinda.
The contemporary approach to traditional texts was most evident in the rendering of the stories of Lord Vishnu and Lord Jagannath, with the dancers displaying fluid movements as elephant Gajendra and crocodile Makara in ‘Gajendra Moksha.’
While the production made use of traditional melodies and is rooted in colloquial language, the interpretation is their own take, she says.
Ms. Tandon’s partner, Michael Weston, has worked on the music arrangements.
“I want to present Gotipua and Odissi elements as an integrated whole, while being rooted in temple and folk worship,” she says.
In tandem with
local artists
An interest in Odissi in Auroville and surrounding areas has already been created due to the efforts of dancer Kanchana, who holds classes in Udavi School. Ms. Tandon hopes to build on this. “I would like to hold performances with students from my studio in surrounding villages for exposure. I also want to find talented youngsters who will be interested in professional training in Odissi,” says Ms. Tandon, who is an empanelled artist with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations.
For the future, she says, she would like to work with local performing artists, integrating indigenous elements found in the villages around Auroville with an Odissi background.
