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| Feature films, on dance and music By Aruna. S / Chennai |   | |||
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| Remember 'Shankarabharanam' and 'Sindhu Bhairavi'? No, not the ragas, but the movies whose stories had a lot to do with art and artistes. These were box office hits in the eighties. Now, a few new films in India have been based on classical music and dance.
'Morning Raga' is a film by Bangalore based playwright and director Mahesh Dattani. Featuring Shabana Azmi in the lead role of a Carnatic singer, the movie is now in its final stages of production. Dattani told KutcheriBuzz, "The inspiration for this is from one of my experiences during my first film 'Mango Soufle' two years ago. The music director for the movie was Amit Heri, a Jazz musician. For one of the songs, we needed a carnatic vocalist. We had a singer Ramamani (from Bangalore). During the recording, it was interesting to watch the interaction between these two artistes belonging to two different worlds - carnatic and western. They were working together and creating something new. It was a meeting of two worlds..." Cinematographed by Rajiv Menon, music has been scored by Amit Heri and Mani Sharma for this film. It features songs rendered by Sudha Raghunathan, Bombay Jayashri and Kalyani Menon. After touring festivals abroad, the movie is scheduled for release in December in India. Contact: E-mail: dattani@vsnl.com.
'Kanavu Meipada Vendum' is film produced by Shruthika Foundation for Arts and Culture, and the storyline is themed on the life of a visionary and the social reform he makes. Directed by Janaki Viswanathan, the movie spans fifty years in time. And a part of the movie dwells on the Devadasi tradition when women of a particular community were made consorts of God and also considered the custodians of Indian classical music and dance, a tradition that later fell on bad days and dirty deeds. The hero of this film is the son of a devadasi. Ramya Krishnan plays the role of the devadasi and Bharatanatyam guru Sudharani Raghupathy makes a special appearance in this film, which was shot in Chennai and in the Chettinad region of Tamil Nadu. Scheduled for release this week.
'Shringara' is a film produced by Bangalore based Pradhan Centre for Arts, headed by dancer Padmini Ravi. It is based on the story of a temple dancer of the 1920s. Co-produced by NFDC, the movie has a grant from Ford Foundation too. Involved in the making of the movie are violin maestro Lalgudi G. Jayaraman who has provided the music score, Madhu Ambat as cinematographer, Thotta Tharani as the art director, and Saroj Khan as the dance choreographer. The cast includes actress-dancer Manju Barghavi, Aditi Rao, Ishvarya, Hamsi Moiley and Sindhu. Post production work is on. Scheduled for release in May. Contact: E-mail: pradhanarts@hotmail.com 'Dance like a Man' is another film based on dance. This film is based on Bangalore-based Mahesh Dattani's play and has taken a long time to make, by Pamela Rooks. It is based on a family of Bharatanatyam dancers abd is mostly in English. It features dancer-actress Shobana, Anoushka Shankar and Mohan Agashe. | ||||
