What an apt choice for Kalakshetra Foundation’s festival on choreography titled ‘Suvritti – Traversing Creative Energies’! The inspiring visualisation in her latest production ‘Bhava Sangama,’ created specifically for the ‘Kalinga- Indonesia Dialogue’ at Bhuvaneshwar recently, places senior Odissi dancer and guru Aruna Mohanty amongst India’s best choreographers today.
‘Bhava Sangama’ traces the cultural similarities between the two civilisations that grew on account of the maritime trade between ancient Kalinga and Indonesia from the 1st century AD or earlier. Even today, the festival of ‘Bali Yatra’ is celebrated in Odisha by floating boats filled with spices and diyas.
Having such a broad canvas to cover, Aruna based her production on the best-suited common factor, the Ramayana. On this, she superimposed layer upon layer of facets like the Odissi margam, Oriyan folk elements, Indonesian dance styles such as Gabor, Legong and Tarinimangwarin, Indonesian music, navarasa in Ramayana, integrating them into a stunning piece of art work.
Aruna did away with conventional scenes, introducing graphically symbolic movements, clever lighting and elements of theatre to re-invent an old story. Voice-overs helped contextualise the early scenes.
A mangalacharan paying homage to Rama was followed by a folk-inspired boat scene that portrayed the pioneering traders and their welcoming counterparts. A perfunctory look at sculptures and other arts, lead into a hauntingly beautiful, ‘Tha hum ta thei ta tari ta jhe naa ..’ (Keeravani Pallavi, Khempta, choreography by Kelucharan Mohapatra) bringing Odissi upfront in all its glory. The pallavi was interspersed with Indonesian dance, the delicate footwork with bent knees and the small movements of the fingers standing in stark contrast to the strong nritta in Odissi. One did not have to wait for long however to see familiar neck and eye movements.
Within the retelling of the Ramayana, Aruna reinforced the cultural links by using Indonesian dances in key portrayals — as Sita, Soorpanaka, Mareecha, Ravana in the Sita Haran scene amongst others. Despite the absence of gestures, the emotions were conveyed dramatically. The scene in Ashoka Vana when Sita doubts Hanuman suspecting him to be a maya form of Ravana, is a case in point.
Visual impact was the prime consideration as the story moved at a fast pace. The beautiful musical score combined the Oriyan and the Indonesian, sacrificing neither melody nor rhythm. The mixture of Odissi and Indonesian dance in the Rama-Mareecha chase was arresting, as were the rhythmic bols and ukutas, used for Jatayu’s fight with Ravana. Picturisation of Hanuman’s capture in Lanka with guards flanking him making a horizontal line at the back; they move sideways with big leg movements when they take his tail and set fire to it. Hanuman suddenly turns around and whips everyone with it, creating unexpected visual drama. If Guru Aruna’s visuals were poetic, her presentation was exciting. The best was the Sethu Bandana scene when the monkey army throws stones and sand into the ocean to build a bridge. The group subsequently make a horizontal line at the back of the stage and show the bridge as it is being built — first as floating stones, then as an unsteady structure moving up and down with the waves and finally as a solid structure. The 60-minute ‘Bhava Sangama’ will certainly be a milestone in Aruna Mohanty’s achievements.
