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Celebrating the creative spirit
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`The Other Festival', to be held from December 1 to 7 at the Museum Theatre, will showcase a variety of art forms in a contemporary context.
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"Oikyotaan".. K.V. Balakrishnan.
Avant-garde and innovative is perhaps what would best describe `The Other Festival' — the unique international festival of arts, which will be held for the fourth successive year from December 1-7, at the Museum Theatre in the city. Celebrating excellence and innovation in all art forms, the festival was co-founded in 1998 by dance diva/cultural activist Anita Ratnam (Arangham Trust) and entrepreneur Ranvir Shah (Prakriti Foundation).
Offering a panorama of exciting stage performances, it has become a calendar event on the city's cultural landscape, with talented artistes and art aficionados alike, from all over India and abroad participating.
"It is the only arts festival in the country to highlight the contemporary vocabulary and cultural cross-currents firing today's creative spirit. It has become a crucible for a curious and young audience to explore a variety of artistic sensibilities and discover `other' landscapes of experiences," comments Anita Ratnam, co-artistic director of the festival.
Ranvir Shah, who is also co-artistic director, concurs, ``We are happy that `The Other Festival' is beginning to enjoy a distinct identity of its own, with requests to perform here coming in from so many respected artistes around the world. Another interesting aspect is the involvement of the city's collegians in the management and coordination of the event. We want them to conceptualise and further build `The Other Festival's showcase as the ``Future of the Performing Arts".
"Dawn to Dusk"... Ariane Gray - Hubert.
This year, the event begins each evening with a series of short performances in Tamil theatre, celebrating the genre and honouring its doyen, N. Muthuswamy, at the Centenary Exhibition Hall, Museum Theatre grounds, between 5.30 and 6.30pm. The event then shifts to the Museum Theatre from 7 p.m. with short and full performances in music, dance, theatre and art.
On December 1, 7.15 p.m., the stage will be set for Doris Lessing's "An Unposted Love Letter" presented by Neelam Man Singh Chowdhry, artistic director of the Chandigarh-based The Company. A bilingual in English and Punjabi, adapted from a collection of short stories by Lessing, it is a complex tapestry of ideas, attitudes and values captured through the reminiscences of an actress in her green room.
December 2, 6.15 p.m. Susanne Kirchner of Germany in collaboration with the Max Mueller Bhavan, will hold the stage with "Dance Sculpture," featuring solo contemporary dance, a collaborative effort by the Max Mueller Bhavan and Susanne Kirchner of Germany. The evening closes with `Oikyotaan' (which begins at 7.00 p.m.), a pulsating folk repertoire from Bangladesh and West Bengal, interpreted with an additional ensemble of sounds and textures by Bonnie Chakraborty and his Chennai-based music group.
Mallika Sarabhai in "Search of the Goddess".
December 3, 7.15 p.m., commences with a world premiere by Bangalore-based contemporary dancer, Bharat Sharma. `Antardeham...'(Between Bodies) explores space in dance. The second performance, at 7.45 p.m., is an intriguing work in dance-theatre, with Arjun Raina (New Delhi) presenting `Khelkali', an experiment that uses the stories and text of Shakespeare and the style and theatrics of Kathakali to create an authentic theatrical voice. Original work from the Samudra Centre For Performing Arts (Thiruvananthapuram) in contemporary dance will be showcased on December 4 at 7.15 p.m., with `The Sound of Silence' reflecting an innovative dialogue between movement and sound, body and soul and tradition and modernity. Absorbing theatre follows at 8.00 p.m., with Atul Kumar's (Mumbai) `The Typists', a play that looks at the redundant human condition in a tragic-comic manner.
At 7.15 p.m. on December 5, Ann Moradian (U.S.), ``a whirlwind of modern dance excellence,'' presents "Private Journeys" followed by a collaborative venture by the Alliance Francaise de Madras and France's Ariane Gray-Hubert. An accomplished musician and exceptional classical pianist, Ariane presents "Dawn to Dusk" at 7.45 p.m., a mosaic of melodic and rhythmic variations exploring the relationship between musical rhythms and the cycles of day and night.
Padmini Chettur (Chennai) and her contemporary dance group take centrestage on December 6, 7.15 p.m., with "Fragility", a co-production with the Schaubuhne am Lehniner Platz, Berlin and the Theatre de la Ville, Paris. They will explore fragility at a conceptual and formal level.
Padmini Chettur in "Fragility".
The festival closes with two exciting performances on December 7.
Mallika Sarabhai (Ahmedabad) and artistes from the Darpana Performance Group will present "In Search of the Goddess", a work that combines classical dance, story-telling and mime to explore the perception of Shakti. This is at 7.15 p.m. The evening's second performance, at 8.15 p.m., is a collaborative venture with The British Council and U.K.-based music group, "Maroon Town" which will be concluding its all-India tour at Chennai. Transcending cultural boundaries, the group combines its musical roots - Latin, African, jazz and classical with an infusion of rap - into a single characteristic must-dance rhythm.
Passes at Rs.1,000 and Rs. 300 for the event can be booked through Arangham's office at 852 4916 / 852 2066 / 98410-45235.
You can also email at theotherfestival@arangham.com Daily tickets at Rs.50 will be available at the Museum Theatre between December 1- 7, from 7 p.m.
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