An artful decade

The New Festival keeps faith with both eclecticism and modernism

October 08, 2016 08:10 pm | Updated October 11, 2016 04:34 pm IST

Yuki Elias performing ‘Elephant in the Room’ this year.

Yuki Elias performing ‘Elephant in the Room’ this year.

“If equal affection cannot be, let the more loving one be me.” This sentiment from 20th century poet Auden could well be the lyrics of a 9th century Alwar or Nayanar, sparking Chennai-based Prakriti Foundation in its 21st century service to the modern muse, an adventurous effort in a heavily traditional milieu.

In partnership with The Park hotels and a number of well-wishers, Prakriti Foundation curates an annual festival of performing arts dedicated to emerging and new work in the country and from abroad. Ten years old this year, The Park’s New Festival can look back with satisfaction at the increasing affection garnered from audiences now in six cities — Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Mumbai and New Delhi.

At the just-concluded Delhi festival, the venue was full for a fusion concert by two Indians, Shashank Subramanyam and Ojas Adhiya, the now grown-up child prodigies on the bamboo flute and tabla. Their musical partners were the Romanian-Swedish trio Lelo Nika, Thommy Anderson and George Mihalache on the accordion, cello and the cimbalom, respectively. In particular, accordionist Nika’s range was dashing and dreamy, fiery and spiritual. The group explored thrilling Romanian gypsy airs, a deeply rhythmic Swedish folk song with jazz improvisations, and Raag Yaman Kalyani with grace notes of Jagadodharana. This rare, delicious experience took me back in time to the banks of the Cauvery in Thiruvarur, where I heard Subramanyam and Adhiya play at the Festival of Sacred Music eight years ago. That too was an endeavour by Prakriti Foundation, in collaboration with the district authorities and local institutions.

I caught a glimpse of the first edition of The New Festival in December 2007, during the music season, and it was like being offered two worlds. Hardcore Carnatica was on in full swing at The Music Academy and other sabhas, creating sanctuaries of sound.

New Festival offered a wildly diverse mix: a dance-drama by Mallika Sarabhai on the Devi Mahatmaya, Ramu Ramanathan’s play Jazz , the delicate production ‘Porcelain’ by Walter and Tobias Sturmer with Preethi Athrey’s solo, a play on Annie Besant, and a production by Dance Routes called ‘Dhara’ that was based on Odiya Patachitra paintings.

The curatorial intention was crystal-clear from that first edition: to bring together tradition and modernity, east and west, north and south, and new explorations of the old. My understanding of that first playbill was that it sought to vivify the Gandhian credo: “I do not want my house to be walled in on all sides and my windows to be stuffed. I want the culture of all lands to be blown about my house as freely as possible. But I refuse to be blown off my feet by any.”

But would a culturally fragmented and possibly unexposed, indifferent public care? Would Indian audiences resist being coaxed, ever so pleasantly, out of their comfort zone?

The first response was mildly encouraging — after all, these productions were unexceptionable. And so, with renewed commitment, the festival pushed the envelope a little further, still staying on this side of ‘safe’ in its next edition with a puppet play on Ram in the Balinese style and installation art with interactive dances — old hat to Indian Council for Cultural Relations’ pampered Delhi but new for ‘Singara Chennai’.

The festival stayed in Chennai for its first three years but in 2010, it sprang out boldly to three more state capitals — Hyderabad, Kolkata and New Delhi. Its content grew more experimental — Shiv Shakti, a duetto with Dhurba Ghosh on the sarangi and Ernest Rombout on the alto oboe, exploring three sets of ragas: Shankara-Durga, Bhairav-Bhairavi and Jaunpuri-Asaveri; a musical puppet show called Bollywood Bandwagon; and a turn by Vidur Kapoor, the stand-up comic.

In 2011, the festival’s fifth edition grew to a six-city event with the addition of Bengaluru and Mumbai, and it has sustained this span so far. In terms of content, I cannot think of another festival as steadily eclectic except the 16-year-old International Dance Festival curated by Thailand’s first ballerina, Vararom Pachimsawat, and her Friends-of-the-Arts Foundation, in which India participated for the first time in 2012. Interestingly, when Protein Dance, the English company, presented its witty production ‘LOL’ on love in the internet era at this festival, its next destination was Chennai, and they were guests of Prakriti Foundation.

Renuka Narayanan lives in New Delhi and writes on religion, art and culture. Her new book A Madrasi Memoir will be out this month.

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