Excellent Concert and a Talented Arundhati Singha!! Hot Talas and Cool Rasas is Just Tooo COOOOOL...
Austin, Texas on OCT, 22nd 2005.
If you ever ever ever get a chance to watch Mallika Sarabhai and the Darpana group perform any of their contemporary ballets, please do not miss it! Not only Mallika, but her complete group who performed 'Hot Talas and Cool Rasas' are so amazingly talented. The efforts, the hardships, the choreography and the smooth flow of bodies dancing on the stage is all so well put in, along with some real mind blowing fusion music, its just beyond compare. The concert started with a hard core classical Bharatnatyam performance which went on for 30 minutes. And then Mallika announced that we were at the end of the first half of the concert. The audience was really confused thinking that the whole performance would be only for an hour, and disappointed becos some had paid $50 for a ticket. Suddenly the lights went out and a spotlight followed Mallika as she walked on the stage and said "Now that you have got an idea of our classical expertise, let us give you a gist of some contemporary ballet." And then they started for the next one and half hour, mixing jazz music, south indian classical and music by the group Indian Ocean! It was just fantastic. Mallika would give a very brief and concise explaination just before starting a new skit. She tackled issues from women oppression and religious riots to abstract and philosophical issues like why everybody has a mask on their face.
I was very fortunate sit in the second row from the stage, and I could actually see the varying expressions on each of the performer's faces. Among them was this talented and probably the youngest prodigy in the present group,
Arundhati Singha. As the story for any of the skits progressed, I could see the expressions on Arundhati's face change so drastically.....implying that blood and talent was present as one in her veins. Her brief biography describes her as a graduate from Kalakshetra where she was trained for 15 years. And... Ohh.... by the way....her eyes are
so so so expressive (Yes, I have to say it thrice)...I was completely bowled over!!
All in all an excellent concert....definitely not to be missed if one gets a chance to see it!!
Monday, October 24, 2005