“Usually, after a day’s work, we would go out, meet our friends or shop. We would look for happiness in such things. This virus has shown us that the happiness that comes with those things, can’t always be with us… But even now, there are things beyond this, that can give us happiness.” This is how thavil artiste Adyar G Silambarasan introduces Behag raga — “This ragam is one that makes us feel happy,” he continues, as the video opens to Chennai-based A Carnatic Quartet playing the popular varnam, ‘Vanajaksha’, albeit on a screen split in four.
Rise , a musical production conceptualised by the Carnatic ensemble is thus an amalgam of spoken word, illustration and of course, music, arranged and produced remotely. The production is set to premiere tomorrow.
The quartet comprising violinist Shreya Devnath, Praveen Sparsh on mridangam, Mylai Karthikeyan on nadaswaram and two alternating thavil artistes Adyar G Silambarasan and Gummudipoondi R Jeevanandham, has been playing together since December 2019.
“Since we started, we hadn’t gone this long without meeting up or playing together. So we started putting out one-minute-long videos on Instagram, on a grid format where we each played at our own homes and later assembled the audio and video,” recalls Shreya. On seeing one of the videos, the organiser of their spring tour in the US, Dhvani India, (which was scheduled to happen in March, but was cancelled), commissioned a 90-minute production in this format.
The quartet wouldn’t call it a full-fledged concert. It follows a script and narration which makes it a musical production. “We thought the production should be reflective of whatever we are going through, now. Art can never be in a bubble of its own. Art always moves with society,” says Shreya who is also behind the video editing and concept of the production.
Not just the modality, even the thinking process was reflective of the times, adds the artiste. Rise draws from 10 different themes: — from gender roles and power structures to racial discrimination and the work-from-home experience. Simple themes of happiness and innocence also make an appearance, as artistes interact with the audience through short introductory appearances before each of the compositions. It ends with a fitting tribute to the COVID-19 warriors.
The illustrations were done by musician and artist Susha while the sound design was led by Praveen. “The audience gets the artistes’ perspective of each of the themes. With every new theme, the artiste addresses the viewer,” explains Shreya. Memorable quotes from many world philosophies also find a place. “We wanted to take the viewers through an emotional experience by not diluting the music that we wanted to present,” says Praveen.
The process was labour-intensive — bits of abstract instrumental music were being sent via mails and WhatsApp messages . “The process of making musical sense of it took a long time. We wanted to zoom out and give it a different perspective because we were trying to arrange music that was played live,” says Praveen, adding that since the sound quality of the sources varied, some plug-ins and mixing techniques used in alternative music were blended in.
“Every bar of music played had to be discussed through phone calls,” adds Shreya.
Rise will be put out for sale in the weeks after the premiere. The premiere will be on the August 21 at 7 pm on artsquarefeet. Link: https://live.artsquarefeet.com/show/Nz9UrFKUof1Pg6p453R8.
