NSD returns to stage with Kalidasa’s traditional

The Nationwide College of Drama (NSD), which lately acquired Prof. Ramesh Chandra Gaur as its new director, reopened after a two-year hiatus with the staging of Kalidasa’s Abhignanashakuntalam.

The NSD Repertory Firm staged the 1,800-year-old play to a packed corridor, enacting it on the ideas described within the Natya Sastra.

Music, set design, choreography and path have been by Prof. Rita Ganguly. The script was rewritten in Hindi, with intelligent interpolations of Urdu shayari and trendy contextual references. Surprisingly, the latter weren’t jarring. Varied conventional theatre varieties throughout India, like Kerala’s Chakyar Koothu, have all the time included related socio-political references.

In accordance with Rita Ganguly, the 30-member staff began rehearsing solely from mid-February, however the two-hour present with dance sequences and newly recorded music went off with out a hitch.

The play began historically with the set up of the ‘jharjhara’, colloquially known as the ‘nazar battu’, to keep off the evil eye and unfold positivity amongst the viewers. Senior dancer Geeta Chandran did the standard set up ceremony. As Rita mentioned, the standard method to the classical arts is to soak up the artwork with open receptivity, and to not hold one’s important colleges on the forefront.

Good alternative

The music was acceptable for every scene, and Rita’s rendition of every music mirrored her coaching beneath the greats like Sidheshwari Devi and Begum Akhtar. The court docket scenes have been enacted with Carnatic music, with veena and mridangam being performed within the background. The tanam, set to raga Amritavarshini, rendered in the course of the dramatic scenes, was apt. And ragas resembling Khamach and Bihag have been the selection for depicting the love scenes between King Dushyant and Shakuntala. The songs have been rendered to the accompaniment of shehanai, flute and pakhawaj.

A scene from Abhignanashakuntalam.
| Photograph Credit score: Particular Association

Enacting the dialogues with hand gestures was sensible. The costumes and dance actions have been in sync with the temper. Geeta Chandran remarked, “To make non-dancers transfer gracefully to the music is in itself a problem. I might say this train is among the most vital outcomes of this play, as well as, in fact, to understanding the standard textual content. We have now all the time included Mahakavi Kalidas’s works in our dance shows, however utilizing it for a full-length theatre manufacturing is de facto spectacular.”

The auditorium, with glorious acoustics, didn’t require mics. The partitions have been adorned with textile work with themes picked up from the scriptures. The whole expertise was immersive in each sense.

The Delhi-based writer writes on artwork and tradition.