There is a moment during the performance when the artiste forgets time and space; when the audience fades away and the world becomes a faraway memory. All that exists is music. It’s this moment “when artistes lose themselves” that Bhargavii Mani wants to capture on her camera. She pays a photo-tribute to these men and women who’ve dedicated their lives to music and dance through Arpana, a solo-exhibition that will feature her photographs of 14 Carnatic singers, instrumentalists, and dancers.
“There’s something about an artiste’s hands,” says Bhargavii. He/she may have interesting ways of using their hands as they perform on stage. She finds Bharatanatyam dancer Chitra Visweswaran’s “chubby fingers” graceful and is fascinated by T.N. Seshagopalan’s “adorned fingers”. The focus of a lot of her photos, is hence, on the artiste’s hands. “I want your eyes to go to the hands,” she says.
Bhargavii has photographed dancer Sudharani Raghupathy with her famous parrot mudra; Vikku Vinayakram with his hands around his ghatam as if in a friendly embrace; Anil Srinivasan playing the piano, looking gently at the keys… all the while focussing on her subject’s hands.
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When a musician or dancer sets out to perform, he/she becomes a whole new being. He smiles to himself when he sings; she furrows her brows when she tunes her tambura… each of them have their own way of letting go on stage — Bhargavii prefers to capture these elements rather than picture-perfect moments. “I’m not here to make them look good,” she smiles.
The photos were taken at Edge Design House that Bhargavii runs, for a calendar she planned to bring out as part of Art at Edge, a project to promote the arts.
Shot over a year, they even include some beautiful photos of Mandolin U. Shrinivas. Bhargavii says it was an experience working on her project. “Some warmed up to us fast, but some took their time,” she says. She talks about how some singers held her spellbound as they performed for her to shoot. Sudha Ragunathan sang lullabies while “Sriram Parasuram lost himself in his music,” she recalls.
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Bhargavii is a trained Carnatic singer herself. Music runs in her family. The idea to shoot musicians occurred to her upon her arrival in India after a stint in Dubai. She went looking for photos of her great grandfather Sangitha Kalanidhi Veena Sabesha Iyer at The Music Academy. “I found just two of them,” she smiles. “But he had the same poker-face in both.”
Arpana will be on at Lalit Kala Akademi, Greams Road from December 23 to 28. There will be talks/performances by artistes Vikku Vinayakram, Mandolin U. Rajesh, Anil Srinivasan, Sriram Parasuram, C.V. Chandrasekhar, Sudharani Raghupathy, and T.V. Gopalakrishnan from 4 p.m. to 5.30 p.m. on these days.