Given their three-year association, Chicago-based Kalapriya Center for Indian Performing Arts did not think twice before they roped in veteran playwright Gowri Ramnarayan for their latest venture. A collaboration with the Chicago Children’s Choir (CCC), she was to train an ensemble of 50 youngsters in songs inspired by Gandhian ideals for the Mahatma’s 150th birth anniversary. But while Ramnarayan might have experience in the performing arts (having served as the vocal support for MS Subbulakshmi for a decade), she has never trained a choir before — let alone an American one.
So, the programme, titled I Sing of Change , required a lot of revamping. “I had to restructure the songs in more or less straight notes for group singing by singers to whom Indian music is unfamiliar. Not easy, believe me,” she admits. To be presented on November 3 at the city’s Hyde Park, the young adults will sing five songs chosen by Ramnarayan. These include Narsi Mehta’s Vaishnava Jana (Gujarati), Gandhi’s ashram prayer Raghupati Raghava (Hindi), Tagore’s Ekla Chalo (Bengali), Mirabai’s Hari tum haro (Hindi) and Kanchi Paramacharya’s Maitreem bhajata .
Of Mahatma’s relevance
I Sing of Change takes on a narrative approach, which has been segmented into five sections, reflecting a Gandhian ideal. “My script talks about Gandhi’s relevance today — his non-violent resistance of hatred and injustice, his trust in the community, his own deep faith and respect for every religion, his concept of compassion as the matrix of ahimsa and love. Not as a history lesson, but as human experiences,” explains Ramnarayan, known best for her productions Dark Horse and Night’s End , among others.
For Kalapriya, having focussed on the theme of ahimsa in Chicago’s schools since 2017, “it was natural to bring all of Gandhi’s values alive on this 150th birth anniversary,’’ says Mridu Shekhar, president of the center. Add to this the fact that the choir was founded in 1956 during the civil rights movement (which was in turn influenced by Gandhi).
Aligning with Kalapriya, which works in some of the same schools as CCC, was almost an organic process. “We are experiencing very troubling times with much division, violence and hatred. Now, more than ever, it is important for all of us to examine his [Gandhi’s] principles and to find ways to work and live together peacefully,” says Judy Hanson, of the CCC.
Apart from the Indian renditions, there will be others from the choir’s own repertoire, like Precious Lord, Take My Hand — Martin Luther King’s favourite hymn — and South African medleys that speak of the anti-apartheid struggle. “Both King and [Nelson] Mandela were deeply influenced by Mahatma Gandhi’s satyagraha and ahimsa . So it seemed appropriate to feature them,” says Ramnarayan.
How to train a choir
A rehearsal session underway
While most training practices take on a unidimensional approach, Ramnarayan’s experience has been a two-way street that saw her learning new styles. Accustomed to the oral tradition (“Your guru sings, you repeat”), she took Chennai-based singer-songwriter Shilpa Natarajan’s help to translate the songs into staff notation, a style alien to Ramnarayan herself. “She also did the harmonic arrangements. And I had to familiarise myself with those different strands of music!”
The choir, on the other hand, is an amalgamation of youngsters with different racial backgrounds, from families privileged and deprived. The one thing they have in common is their “astonishing performance standard”— which had them grasping pronunciations, lyrics and the tunes in no time at all. “There is one Pakistani girl in particular, who is very happy that I am teaching the choir Indian classics like Raghupati Raghava ,” says Ramnarayan.
While the music was not unfamiliar to the choir (having earlier performed an adaptation of the Ramayana with Chicago-based Natya Dance Theatre), the similarities in the politics of India and America struck a chord. “They saw parallels in Gandhi’s satyagraha and the civil rights movement at once,” she says.
The result of Ramnarayan’s month-long labour is not just a string of songs by the choir. Instead, the audience (comprising of Indians as well as other nationalities) will see them “dance, twirl and clap in fast and slow tempos. It is going to be a high energy audio-visual experience,” she concludes.
I Sing of Change begins at 4 pm on November 3 at Logan Center Performance Hall, Hyde Park, Chicago.
