By IANS
New Delhi : From the pitter-patter of the first monsoon showers and the romance associated with the rains to the havoc it wreaks, kathak danseuse Sharmishta Mukherjee’s ballet here encapsulated the many moods of the magical season.
‘Varsha Malhar’ by Sharmishta and her troupe – that Monday evening kicked off the annual Malhar Festival organised by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) to celebrate the monsoons – caught the images and emotions linked with the rain through kathak swirls, intricate footwork and contemporary and traditional music.
The monsoons symbolise rejuvenation and beginning of new life after a scorching summer.
People reeling under the extreme heat, longing for some showers, were the first images the ballet portrayed. It was imaginatively set to music by Indian Ocean, and the pirouettes and super-speed steps went well with the Indi-rock song.
The clouds bring hope of the long-awaited rains… accordingly, the composition “Barkha ritu aaye” (the monsoons have arrived) depicted the joy when the first raindrops fall on the parched earth and the bare skin. The heavy rain that follows not just drenches people’s bodies but their souls as well.
A solo piece on the lone cloud narrating the story of its formation was beautifully conceived and enhanced with video images. It followed the journey of a little stream that finally merges with the vast sea and evaporates to form a cloud in the azure skies.
The cultural evening was inaugurated by Gursharan Kaur, wife of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, and was attended by External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and ICCR chairperson Karan Singh.
The innovative numbers included one on the moon playing hide and seek with the clouds. The white, black and grey costumes added to the effect.
Another was the symphony of the monsoons that recreated, solely through footwork, the rhythmic patterns of raindrops on rooftops or windowpanes. The unique piece that highlighted only the dancers’ feet was a treat to watch … or shall we say hear!
Sharmishta also highlighted the romance of the magical season through the sringara rasa – where the rain ignites passions in young hearts.
But monsoons are not always joyous. The very clouds that brought hope at the onset unleash a reign of destruction as they thunder with all their might.
The choreography depicted floods washing away entire villages, leaving behind a trail of disaster, despair and darkness. But the video images of flood victims used along with the dance somehow did not gel.
Sharmishta was ably assisted by her group of young dancers who executed the complex rhythmic choreographies with finesse. The music composed gave it the required freshness and set the mood, but one did wish more varieties of Raag Malhar, which is said to invoke the rain gods, was used in the dance dedicated to the monsoons.