Shobana to stage musical in Malaysia

The musical, which has been conceived, interpreted and choreographed, by Shobana is aimed to widen the appeal of the Ramayana among world audiences. It features top artists from Mumbai and Chennai as narrators and Shobana herself plays Ravan.

Dancer and actor Shobana performing at the Indian Institute of Technology-Madras, Chennai, on Jan. 21, 2009. Photo: M.Vedhan.

Award winning Indian actor-dancer, Shobana, is to stage her acclaimed musical Maya Ravan , based on the Ramayana epic, for the Malaysian audience here.

The musical, which has been conceived, interpreted and choreographed, by Shobana is aimed to widen the appeal of the Ramayana among world audiences. It features top artists from Mumbai and Chennai as narrators and Shobana herself plays Ravan.

Hailed as one of the most beautiful actresses of India, Shobana combines her three loves — cinema, Bharatanatyam and theatre — in this production,

New Straits Times said.

The musical has students of her dance school, Kalarpana. It has staged more than 50 shows in a two-and-half year-worldwide tour.

Shobana, a frequent visitor to Malaysia, said the musical score of Maya Ravan “is made up of a fusion of world music and Indian film music”.

The narration is in English and rendered by well-known Indian film artistes including Naseeruddin Shah, Jackie Shroff, Milind Soman, Suhasini Maniratnam, Revathy, Rohini, Tabu, Sameer Sony and Mohanlal, the newspaper said.

Proceeds of the show Saturday will be donated to the Malaysian Association for the Blind.

The actress captured the hearts of Malaysian fans’ by playing Tamil superstar Rajnikant’s heroine in the blockbuster movie Thalapathi .