24 hrs at the music academy
Cameraman Mohan Vadakara and I jump at an idea.
'24 hours at The Music Academy'.
In the time squeezed out of our schedules of shooting, taking pictures, posting stuff on www.kutcheribuzz.com and bringing out the KB Daily, this is a rather ambitious task.
But we get down to it on Saturday at high noon when the sun is still kind.
Sweeping the facade of the Academy are dozens of banners.
Sponsors are generous at 'season' time.
Tata, ICICI, Sundaram Finance. . . . they are all there.
The lobby and its commerce is colourful too. Especially, the maze of sign boards atop the tickets counter.
'TICKETS SOLD OUT', says one. Good sign indeed.
We mull on whether we should enter the well designed and maintained wash rooms and stop.
The Academy's chief N. Murali is in the lobby. A quick byte.
Murail says rasikas and artistes loved the new Bose audio system and the feedback system and that more would be done in the new year.
Murali is kind to us. It isn't easy to shoot inside the Academy. Sensitive issues - artistes and copyrights and all that.
Master Balamuralikrishna on stage.
Outside, we catch up with Amrita Murali who had just finished her concert and has well-wishers discussing it.
It is this 'shoot at will' approach that gives such productions a different colour.
Time to move to the canteen - and the caterers from Kondithope ( where's that? in the Mint area. Where's Mint? In North Madras? Wheres North Madras? Whoa! )
It is a bright, cheerful canteen. And the 'kalyana sapad' is running full.
Shots of people tucking in. Some feel embarrassed. No harm done.
The stewards are excited. "Which TV?"
We are back at 4 pm and the queue to get tickets for Aruna Sairam's 4.15 pm concert hands on patiently.
The curtains go up inside, on the dot.
From the flanks we shoot in quiet. The frames are different.
Even the pit is filled with rasikas. And a front row season ticket is priced Rs.10,000.
Over at the mini hall, only a few seats are unoccupied. Aruna's concert is projected via LCD.
The desperate go for it. Not Alain from France. "You don't travel 4000 kms to see concerts on a screen!"
We wait. To capture the final minutes of the Aruna concert. "Please don't keep shooting backstage, we've another concert,"says an efficient stage manager.
We scoot up to the green room. To capture the mood of O. S. Thiagarajan and his team. An animated discussion is on. And steaming coffee arrives.
OST chats up. "I've won all the awards at the Academy!"
"But one", I mention.
"But one,"he says.
He knows the hall will empty after Aruna is done. But that doesn't bother him. "I have my own rasikas. They will be there."
Outside the flashbulbs pop, pop, pop. Rasikas grab Aruna's hands. A frenzied scene.
Ghatam Karthik, mridangist J. Vaidyanathan and violinist Vijayalakshmi are pleased when the camera captures them too. "The media is so important. Every word counts for me,"says Karthik. Dr. Karthik.
We get back at 8 am on Sunday. At the mini hall. Ghatam V. Suresh and his 'kutti sishyas' present devotional songs. A tad loud, I think.
The hall; overflows quickly. The lec-dem is key. To be given by Palghat Raghu who is the Sangita Kalanishi designate.
Raghu is brief in his observations. And carries a dry wit.
But the threesome on stage, grandsons Abhishek Raghuram and Anand on the mridangam, and violinist Mysore V. Srikanth rock the lec-dem. The young artistes receive a huge applause.
Trichy Sankaran, Ravi Kiran and T. N. Seshagopalan share their views on 'Mishram'.
The hall empties.
Another concert has just begun in the main hall.
We retire to the canteen. 11 am. Mohan and I share a vada besides idlis and dosa. The canteen folks don't charge us for the food. They are still excited hoping to see the docu.
Mohan is busy shooting an arts show on New Year's eve.
So we should have the docu up on January 2, 2008. Hopefully.
A docu which tries to capture the scene at the Academy's 2007 season.
Click here to see the VIDEO!
Unique experience at Sonal Mansingh's show
by Mahalakshmi Ram
Hasya from the audience was what that dominated the navarasa segment of
Sonal Mansingh’s Odissi performance at Sri Krishna Gana Sabha, on Dec.6, at 7.30 pm. The young vocalist in the orchestra having joined the senior dancer only a week ago was not well rehearsed and got many instructions from the dancer right during the performance, loud and clear, with no effort by Mansingh to conceal her prompts.
Whenever a mistake was made, Mansingh stopped mid-track, corrected it in her stylised dance way and the moment the vocalist corrected himself, she like a strict teacher happy about her student grasping the point nodded her head approvingly with a big smile and then continued from where she left off.
For instance: every rasa segment portrayed a key phrase that pictured a story followed by the mention of the rasa it sought to bring out. During the hasya rasa segment when Mansingh did not get the word hasya from the vocalist at the moment she required it, she screamed it out to him and he very obediently, immediately launched into repetitive singing of the word hasya. This had the audience smiling. Surprisingly, her constant, obvious and spontaneous correcting did not spoil the show but added to its appeal by building an informal closeness with the dancer reducing the gap which the audience usually feels with the dancer.
Dance conference to discuss sensuality in Indian dance
Kartik fine arts is organising its annual dance conference on Dec. 22, 23 and 24. The topic selected is 'Sensuality in Indian dance'.
Sensuality,sensuousness and erotica are words that are very often used interchangebly.
"Our art forms are practiced, taught, observed and critiqued all over the world.
Frequently we hear comments thrown on the sensuality elements in our texts and art forms. Hence we thought it would be relevant to discuss these issues through the demonstrations of eminent artists, says" dancer Priyadarshini Govind, the convenor of the conference.
A website to invite questions and comments from practitioners, students and rasikas of the arts have also been on - www.natyadarshan.org. Priyadarshini hopes that this will make the discussion in the conference more meaningful.
Sabhas to publish Newsletter
A few sabhas are joining hands to publish a December Season Newsletter.
The buzz is that this daily publication will highlight all the concerts of the participating sabhas, post reviews of the less-known artistes and top it with lighter content.
The publication will be out from December 5 to Jan 1, 2008, we are told.
The idea has done the rounds of the sabhas for a decade. Looks like it is taking off for good this 'season'.
We still don't know what the news sheet is called. But ' Sabash!' would be an appropriate name!
Elections at MFAC
Much like Indian politics, sabhas too are managed by the same old people. And the baton often passes inside the governing family.
So when the elections to Mylapore Fine Arts Club (MFAC) were announced in late October, there were some rumblings of a contest.
Rather unusual.
The rumblings came out into the public because some members seem to have registered a Trust borrowing MFAC's name, without discussing the move at a larger forum.
Now, rasikas and sabha members aren't too bothered about the management of sabhas.
Few were when the polling took place.
Now, everybody's busy with the December Season.
Space for Art ?
Two artists are wondering if sabha managers will be keen to have their paintings displayed in the corridors / lobby/foyer of the halls during the 'season'.
Srinivasan runs a software company and also paints, full time. His painting of 'Thyagaraja' sold in a jiffy.
( You can check out his works at - www.chennaigallery.com )
Gita is a self-taught artist and last year, she did a series on women and the arts (Gita used to learn dance under guru V. P. Dhananjayan).
(You can check out her works at www.studiogita.in)
Both have privately expressed their willingness to have their works displayed at the sabhas.
Over to the sabha managers . . .
Buzz from Sabhas
