B Jayashree’s spandana  presents the ‘Sadarame’ play in Rangashankara from 5th   march to 11th  march(except on 9th). At this occasion we are reproducing a review of ‘Sadarame’ drama by S R Ramakrishna, resident editor, MiD DAY, Bangalore from  Ram’s blog .

by S R Ramakrishna

(ಬಿಎಚ್ಎಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ರಂಗೋತ್ಸವ ಎಚ್ ಎನ್ ಕಲಾಕ್ಷೇತ್ರದಲ್ಲಿ ನಡೆಯಿತು. ಇದಕ್ಕೆ ಪ್ರೇಕ್ಷಕರ ಪ್ರತಿಕ್ರಿಯೆ ಹೇಗಿತ್ತು ಎಂಬ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ನಾಟಕಿ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು ತಮ್ಮ ‘ಅಭಿಪ್ರಾಯ‘ ವ್ಯಕ್ತಪಡಿಸಿದ್ದರು. ಆ ಪ್ರತಿಕ್ರಿಯೆಗೆ ಪ್ರತಿಕ್ರಿಯೆ ಇದು – ಸೈಡ್ ವಿಂಗ್)

*ಕೇಶವ

The last line “ಮೆಜೆಸ್ಟಿಕ್ ನಲ್ಲೇನಾದರೂ ಕುಳಿತ್ತಿದ್ದೇವೋ…” was not needed. I think people in Majestic would be more majestic than this kind of crowd.

Audience Review

-ನಾಟಕಿ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು

ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ಹಬ್ಬಕ್ಕೆ ನಾಟಕ ಆಡಿಸೋದು!!!!. ಮೊನ್ನೆ ಹೆಚ್.ಎನ್. ಕಲಾಕ್ಷೇತರದಲ್ಲೆ ಬಿ. ಹೆಚ್ ಎಸ್ ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ರಂಗೋತ್ಸವ ಇತ್ತು. ಮೊದಲದಿನ ಅಂದರೆ 15 ಫೆಬ್ರವರಿಗೆ ‘ಮಾದಾರಿ ಮಾದಯ್ಯ’ ಪ್ರೇಕ್ಷಕರಲ್ಲಿ ಬಹುಪಾಲು ಕಾಲೇಜಿನ ವಿದ್ಯಾರ್ಥಿಗಳು. ನಾಟಕ ಪ್ರಾರಂಭಕ್ಕೆ ಮೊದಲು, ಗಲಾಟೆ , ಶಿಳ್ಳೆ… ರಂಗಪ್ರಿಯರ ತಾಳ್ಮೆ ಪರಿಕ್ಷಿಸುವಷ್ಟು!!.

ನಾಟಕ ಪ್ರಾರಂಬವಾಗುತ್ತಲೇ ಮತ್ತಷ್ಟು ಪುನಾರಾವರ್ತನೆ. ಅಸಭ್ಯ ಕಾಮೆಂಟಗಳು…

ನಾಟಕವನ್ನು ನಾಟಕವಾಗಿ ನೋಡಬೇಕೆನ್ನುವ ಸಾಮಾನ್ಯ ಪ್ರಜ್ಞೆ ಇಲ್ಲದಿದ್ದರೆ ಹೀಗಾಗುತ್ತದೆ. ಪ್ರೇಕ್ಷಕನಿಗೆ ನಾಟಕದ ಬಗ್ಗೆ ಒಂದು ಗಂಭೀರ ಗೌರವ ಇಲ್ಲದಿದ್ದರೆ ಗಂಬೀರವಾಗಿ ನಾಟಕ ನೋಡುವ ರಂಗಪ್ರಿಯರಿಗೊಂದು ಕಷ್ಟ.

ನಾಟಕ ಮುಗಿದ ಮೇಲೂ ನಾಟಕದಲ್ಲಿ ಪಾತ್ರವಹಿಸಿದ ಹೆಣ್ಣುಮಕ್ಕಳ ಹೆಸರುಗಳನ್ನು ಕೂಗಿ ಅಸಭ್ಯವಾಗಿಸಿದ್ದು ….ಕೇಳುವಾಗ ನಾವು ಮೆಜೆಸ್ಟಿಕ್ ನಲ್ಲೇನಾದರೂ ಕುಳಿತ್ತಿದ್ದೇವೋ ಅನಿಸುತ್ತಿತ್ತು.

Audience review

ನಾಟಕಿ ಬೆಂಗಳೂರು

ಭಟ್ಟರ ‘ಕಂಸಾಯಣ’ ಮಕ್ಕಳ ಚಕ್ಯತೆಗೆ ಹಿಡಿದ ಕನ್ನಡಿ.

ವೃತ್ತಿಪರ ರಂಗನಟರನ್ನೂ ನಾಚಿಸುನ ನಟನೆ , ಕೌಶಲ್ಯ, ರಂಗಪ್ರಜ್ಷೆ ಅತ್ಯದ್ಭುತ.

ಕಂಸನನ್ನು ಈಗಲೂ ನೆನೆಸಿಕೊಂಡ ಹೆದರುತ್ತೇನೆ.

ಕರಿಭಂಟ…………………………………

ಸತ್ಯ ಉಡುಪಿ ಹೇಳ್ತಾರೆ….

ನಾಗ್ತಿಹಳ್ಳಿಯ ಬೆಡಗಿಯರ  ‘ಕರಿಭಂಟ’ ಮೊದಲಿಗೆ ಬೋರ್ ಹೊಡೆಸ್ತು. ಕಂಪನಿ ನಾಟಕದ ನೆನಪು ತಂತು. ಹಾವಭಾವ, ಚಲನೆ, ಡೈಲಾಗ್ ಎಲ್ಲಾ ಅದರದ್ದೇ. ಅರ್ಥಪೂರ್ಣ ರಂಗಸಜ್ಜಿಕೆ, ಮಿಂಚುವ ಬೆಳಕು ಖುಶಿ ಕೊಟ್ಟಿತು. ಮುಕ್ತಾಯ ತುಂಬಾ ಖುಷಿಯಾಯ್ತು.

ನ್ಯಾಯ ದೇವತೆಗಳನ್ನ ಈಗಿನ ಮಹಿಳಾವಾದಿಗಳಿಗೆ, ಮಹಿಳಾ ಆಯೋಗಕ್ಕೆ ಹೋಲಿಸಿದ್ದು, ಆ ಮೂಲಕ ಅವರಲ್ಲೇ ಏಕತೆ ಇಲ್ಲದಿರುವುದನ್ನು ಚಿತ್ರಿಸಿರುವುದು ಅದ್ಬುತವಾಗಿತ್ತು. ಮಾನವ ಹಕ್ಕಿನ ಆಯೋಗದವರು ಮತ್ತು ಮಹಿಳಾವಾದಿಗಳು ಈ ದೃಶ್ಯವನ್ನು ಅರ್ಥಮಾಡಿಕೋಬೇಕು.

ಗ್ರಾಮೀಣ ಪ್ರದೇಶದ ಹೆಣ್ಣುಮಕ್ಕಳು ಎಂಬುದನ್ನು ಗಮನದಲ್ಲಿಟ್ಟುಕೊಳ್ಳದಿದ್ದರೆ ನಾಟಕದಲ್ಲಿ ವೈಯಕ್ತಿಕ ಪರ್ ಪಾರ್ಮೆನ್ಸ್  ಏನೇನೂ ಸಾಲದು. ನಟರು (ನಟಿಯರು) ಇನ್ನೂ ಸಾಕಷ್ಟು ಚುರುಕಾಗಬೇಕು.

ಕನ್ನಡ ನಾಟಕಗಳನ್ನು ಸೈಡ್ ವಿಂಗಿನಿಂದ ನೋಡೋದಕ್ಕೆ

ಅವಕಾಶ ಕೊಟ್ಟಿದ್ದಕ್ಕೆ ಧನ್ಯವಾದಗಳು.

-ನಾಸೋಮೇಶ್ವರ

Audience Review

Naatakibengalooru said…..

ರಂಗಶಂಕರದಲ್ಲಿ ಇತ್ತೀಚಿಗೆ ನೋಡಿದ್ದು ‘ಕೃಷ್ಣಮೂರ್ತಿ ಕವತ್ತಾರ್ ರ ತುದಿಯೆಂಬೋ ತುದಿಯಿಲ್ಲ. ಕತೆಗೆ ತುದಿ ಮೊದಲಿರಲಿಲ್ಲ. ಬೆಳಕು ಅಚ್ಚುಕಟ್ಟು. ನಟನೆ ಸಾದಾರಣ.ಇವತ್ತಿಗೂ ಮನಸಿನಲ್ಲಿ ನಿಂತ ಡೈಲಾಗ್ “ನಾನು ಹಾಡ್ ಹಾಡ್ಬೇಕೂ” ಕನಸಲ್ಲೂ ಕಾಡುತ್ತದೆ.

Almost from the first beat of the performance, I felt the breath in my belly deepen and slow down. This is a typical response of mine to artistic expression, but I was watching a dance called Noise + Speed. The music was dissonant and the dancers’ staccato, angular movements reflected that. So, why was I feeling so relaxed? Noise and a fast and frenzied existence usually engender sensations I struggle to keep at bay. The dancers in front of me, however, were choosing a different response: they were allowing these sensations to penetrate them and to embody the dissonance they heard. How did that embodiment make them feel? Did they, too, feel relaxed, and was that feeling of relaxation communicating itself to me?

When the spoken words were added, thoughts periodically erupted to resist and argue. But my thinking never got the chance to develop fully because my attention was continually brought back to the dance before me. The whole experience reminded me a lot of the basic meditation instruction to see your thoughts, let them go, and return to the breath. I’m usually not so successful at the meditation, though, and my thoughts often spin out of control. This experience was so much easier. It’s as though the dancers were doing all the hard work, acting as a bridge between my self and my experience to repeatedly bring me back to my senses!

The most challenging part of the piece for me, as Hilary mentioned in the Q & A, was the section on the Futurist Manifesto of Lust. I really didn’t want to listen to his words, but somehow the dance and music encouraged me to stay present and engaged. I didn’t feel much emotion, which really surprises me considering the subject matter. I’m not sure if I was tuning out or if something else was happening. I have no doubt that the entire company is as repelled by war and rape as I am, but I didn’t feel like there was an intention to pass judgment. It seemed to be an unsentimental exploration of some of the uglier aspects of human nature. And it begs the question, as with the noise and speed: What if we don’t recoil from upsetting and painful experiences? What if the next time I read about Darfur, in addition to my habitual, despairing thoughts, I allow myself to physically identify with the human condition both of the victims and the criminal perpetrators? What will happen to me?

Hilary mentioned how she was interested in the Futurist ideology and did a lot of research as she was choreographing the piece. I wonder how she was transformed from the beginning to the end of the endeavor? What differences do the dancers notice between simply hearing the words or listening to the music and then physically expressing it? Do they feel that the transformation that takes place in their minds and bodies as a result of the art (if such a transformation takes place) has the potential to be transferred to the minds and bodies of the audience receiving it?

Click here for a on-line preview of the exhibition SIGNS.

“…This was back in the 70’s. I was sitting with my dad and his friends in a cloud of blue pot smoke looking at cigarette ads for subliminal messages. That’s how I learned about photography—that there could be a lot of meaning packed into a photographic image, whether it’s real or not.”

Thus began “SIGNS and the Language of Photography,” the final installment in Mt. Tremper Arts’s Thursday Night Lecture Series. The above quote is from Tim Davis, who along with Lisa Kereszi and Mathew Pokoik (who curated SIGNS) showed slides of their work and talked about how and why they photograph signs.

Signs communicate. Photographs communicate. But what does a photograph of a sign communicate? Davis showed a slide of a photograph he made of a huge red painting of the United States, inexpertly rendered on the side of an abandoned building. “It’s the perfect symbol of America,” said Davis. “A distorted, stretched-out, blood-red map of the US used to cover up a failed business venture.”

©Tim Davis,

The discussion reminded me of a cruise I took with my family in Alaska. Out of all the majestic natural beauty that I saw, what I ended up taking pictures of were the signs on the cruise ship. Signs telling one what can and cannot be flushed down the toilet, telling one how to indicate a desire for fresh towels, telling one where to go in case of an emergency. My amusement and confusion at these signs created the photographs as much as my Canon PowerShot digital camera did.

“I had a professor who said I didn’t have the love of language to be a poet,” said Lisa Kereszi. “He drove me right into the arms of the photography department. But I never lost my fascination with language.”

Kereszi showed a series of photos in her slide show that didn’t look like signs at all. One was a straight-on shot of a brushed stainless steel water fountain. The photograph lacked text, but all the same seemed to scream: WATER FOUNTAIN. “I get kind of myopic,” Kereszi said of her process. “It’s like I’ve been dropped into this place to see this thing and show it to people.”

The artists took questions and comments from the audience. Marcel Duchamp’s name was brought up more than once. “Ready-made [art] paved the way for photography,” said Kereszi. “Everything is sort of there, and it’s your experience that makes you notice it and want to communicate it. It’s a shift from the artist-as-creative-genius to the artist-as-looking-at-something-in-the-world.”

Mathew Pokoik showed slides of photographs he’s made in different parts of the world: a pile of brightly colored athletic-type bags that create a sort of mosaic. Another photograph showed a riot of hanging t-shirts of every color. Another was a mind-bending pastiche of images hanging in a sales kiosk—a picture of a Caucasian baby wearing a Santa hat in one corner, traditional Indian deities occupying the center.

Pokoik talked about the art photographer versus the photographer who is entering the world as it happens. “I began wondering—are these distinctions still relevant? All photographs are illusions yet we have an implicit trust in the veracity of images even in our modern digital age.”

Pokoik’s photographs evoke the strange bedfellows that globalization creates. A billboard of a lightened and airbrushed Beyoncé looms over a crowd of Asian pedestrians, blurred in their movements. He asked, “How does the media and image-culture create the tenuous but powerful illusion of centrality?”

The panel participants were refreshingly articulate, talking about their work and about photography in a way that even a layperson such as myself could appreciate. Towards the end of the discussion, the question of the photographer’s judgment of his or her subject came up. Pokoik, referencing the Walker Evans photograph of an early twentieth century minstrel poster that is on display in the SIGNS show, questioned whether the artist who captures and communicates a slice of contemporary reality is making a judgment about his subject at all.

This, to me, is the most intriguing issue that the lecture—and that photography and art in general—raised for me: Is it even possible to separate the artist’s mind from the mind of the person who looks at the photograph? Or to separate the artist’s mind from the subject he or she is photographing? It seems to me that in creating a work of art and seeing a work of art, these boundaries are not clear, perhaps not even there at all. And to attribute an attitude or judgment to the artist seems slippery when looked at more deeply. Where does one’s experience of a work of art come from? What is it? And in photographs especially, the ideas of time and space also seem to slip away as the conditions that caused the artist to open the shutter in that particular place, at that particular time, resonate in my present experience of seeing it.

On Saturday I went to see Dusan Tynek’s Dance Theatre perform two pieces, Fleur-de-Lis and Apian Way, at Mount Tremper Arts. As a poet and writer, I find much of my expression through words, and was blown away by the dancers’ precision and communication through the body. In both pieces there was a commitment from the dancers to connect with one another and the audience in such a concentrated way over an extended period of time with a clear and conscious ability to express story and emotion. Wordlessly.

Dusan Tynek Dance Theatre

The program description of Fleur-de-Lis informed me that the piece was inspired, in part, by Caravaggio’s paintings and that it deals with encounters between divine beings and mortals. I am not very familiar with Caravaggio’s art, although this did not hamper my enjoyment of the piece. For some of the first section of the performance, I found my mind engaged in the question of which dancers were mortal and which divine? Three male and three female dancers took the stage. At a certain point, I decided that the men were the divine beings because of the confidence, power, and the control they expressed through movement. They were the force acting upon the almost-lifeless female dancers for much of the first section. The women moved in response and reaction to them. For me, this piece, and particularly the first section raised lots of gender issues, largely because the male and female dancers were in a physical relationship that reminded me of traditional male-female gender roles. It was a personal relief—one which I felt in my own body—when the female dancers began moving more independently in the middle of the first section. I enjoyed the creative ways in which the dancers gave and received one another’s weight—finding a shoulder shelf or a knee ledge to rest, perch, or balance on. The weight sharing was a particular delight for me to watch, and it reminded me of contact improv classes I’ve participated in in the past.

The second and third sections of the dance exploded the kinds of male-female roles I previously mentioned by pairing couples of 2 men or 2 women, as well as creating shapes with the entire company, at times. While the first section explored the sensuality and sexuality, as well as the relationship between single male and female dancers, the dance unfolded into interesting groupings and different kinds of movements—forceful, passionate. Some of my favorite moments involved rotating groups of three dancers each, in which there was more experimenting with weight sharing. By the end of Fleur-de-Lis I was so moved by the strength, control, expressiveness, and forms of the dancers’ bodies, that I figured they must all be divine and I was the mortal who had encountered them.

The second piece, Apian Way, was fun! The dancers embodied bees to the extent that I felt as if I were not watching human bodies anymore. There was definite communication between dancers, whether it was the sex dance of the Queen with her drone, or the worker bees industriously checking in with one another in the midst of their work. This piece was fresh and experimental with cool costumes—black bodices with shiny, iridescent goldish ruffles made out of the same material as the airy pants. There was a lot of energy in this piece, and I appreciated the versatility of the dance company—being able to perform two very different pieces, both thematically and physically, back to back.

Valerie Linet is a Hudson Valley poet and social worker, who is currently unemployed for a living. She recently quit her job as a trauma therapist at a rape crisis center, and plans to do full-time residential training at the Zen Mountain Monastery beginning this Fall.

8:15pm: The dancers, percussionists, Matt and Aynsley, and a few others stand outside the studio, studying the sky. “Which way are the clouds moving?” Matt goes inside to check the weather. Radar shows rain over the reservoir, but nothing in Mt. Tremper. The decision is finally made: Full Circle will be performed for the first time outdoors, in the field above the studio. As the percussionists break down their gear and trot it from the studio to their cars to haul up the hill, the sky darkens and a few distant lightning flashes are visible over the mountain in the distance. “I’m getting kind of nervous,” says Matt. But there is no question. “We’re committed.”

9:00pm: Most of the guests have arrived and either begin the 8-minute walk up the hill, or climb into the car shuttling guests to the field. Each guest received a flashlight before heading up the hill, and many make use of the spray-bottles of OFF! on the ticket desk before heading up.

9:20pm: I get in the car for its final shuttle up to the field. It’s dark at the performance space, except for the tiki torches (which will soon be extinguished) ringing the perimeter of wooden folding chairs arranged in a circle. Two percussionists are on opposite sides of the circle. Between them and the crickets and the frogs (and the distant rumbling of thunder that we’re not trying to hear), the performance is in surround sound.

The dancers begin. Each holds a flashlight; sometimes they place the flashlights in the grass, and the light beams projecting across the circle show the lines of their bodies through their white skirts. Sometimes their movements are smooth and flowing, synchronized. Sometimes they are herky-jerkey, the dancer closest to me is pawing at the wet grass with her sneakers and she reminds me of a horse pawing at the ground. There are flashes of lightning in the distance; they seem to be getting closer as the performance goes on. Thunder adds its voice to the show, louder and closer. The dancers are so close that I can hear them breathing, hear their bodies as they hit the ground, the rubber soles of their sneakers squeaking on the wet grass. They lie sprawled on the grass and as they move it’s as if the earth itself is moving, breathing. Aynsley and Kristen are doing a duet. One encircles a part of the other, and the encircled dancer slips through the loop like liquid. They trade off, one encircling the other, one slipping through the circle. I didn’t know that bodies could move like liquid.

Finally a bolt of lightning strikes startlingly close, the thunder right behind it, and now it’s raining. Everyone grabs their flashlight and moves up to the shelter of the cabin. The rain passes quickly and everyone is game to pick up where we left off.

I’m back in my chair and when I turn around, I see a long string of flashlights bobbing down the hill back to the field. The dancers pick up the performance, running around the outside of the circle with their flashlights. It is a performance of incredible endurance—50 minutes of hard work that looks graceful and effortless. The four dancers sit in the center of the circle, each with two flashlights. They push the lights across the distance to each other, and this simple movement—someone pushing a flashlight through the grass to the woman across from her, flashlights crisscrossing through the grass—seems of another world. The stars have come out, the crickets and frogs are still at it, lightning bugs sparkle in the trees.

10:15pm: We’re sitting around the firepit roasting marshmallows for s’mores, talking about the performance and other things. The fire brings us all together and it seems right to say anything, or to say nothing. Another one-of-a-kind evening at Mount Tremper Arts. Thanks Matt & Aynsley!