| INDIA TODAY - The most widely read newsweekly in South Asia. | INDIA TODAY - The most widely read newsweekly in South Asia. | CURRENT ISSUE OCTOBER 16, 2006 | | | | YOUR WEEK: ARTS & ENTERTAINMENT |  | | DANCE | | Motion Divine | | |  | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | INDIAN IDIOM: Heri and her troupe | | DELHI Dance, in India, evolved from the temples and moved to the courts. Splendidly adorned, the dancers would interpret poetic texts with their abhinaya and nritya in palaces and forts. Ananya, a five-day dance festival from October 12 to 16, organised by Seher, attempts to recreate that ambience at Delhi's Purana Qila. Protima Bedi's vision of dance was to reach out to the common man, hence, she founded Nrityagram near Bangalore in 1990. With Surupa Sen and Bijayni Satpathy spearheading it after her untimely death, her legacy has only grown. This is evident from choreographies such as The Sacred Space, which explores the relationship between dance and temple architecture. Madhu Nataraj Heri and her stem dance troupe will perform Indian contemporary dance. "I am trying to find a contemporary Indian idiom in dance," says Heri. They will dance to the accompaniment of Carnatic music and jazz. She will also perform a sufiana piece which will talk about the different moods of love through Amir Khusrau's poetry. Mohiniattam, the graceful dance form from Kerala, will be showcased by Kanak Rele and her troupe. The piece, The Lure of the Flute, will recount the tales of Krishna through the reminiscences of Yamuna/ Kalindi that flowed past the fort. Rele uses the flashback technique to portray Krishna as a feminist who understood the feelings of women-be it Draupadi, Kubja or Radha. The classical number to look forward to is by Bharatnatyam dancer B. Bhanumati and her troupe, based on a poem by Purandera Dasa on Lord Shiva. The other is a tillana on a composition by Dwarke Krishnaswami about Saint Thyagaraja-a song about music. Abstract but gripping Kathak dancer Parwati Dutta from Aurangabad will explore the art traditions prevalent in the seven forts of India. What more could the dance-starved aficionado ask for? Divine motion suspended in time? -By S. Sahaya Ranjit |
| | EXHIBITION | | Feminism on Display | | | | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | Dhumal's Lakshmi (left) and a work by Rodwittiya (right) | | DELHI Two important women artists, Rini Dhumal and Rekha Rodwittia, are showing their works in Delhi this week. Both are much admired by their peers and celebrated by collectors. Dhumal's show (Oct 8-20) at the Art Alive Gallery is titled Tales of the Prophetess and comprises images that "deal with myths and dreams- images from the real world and the subconscious with symbolic references- flying females, which according to her are associated with sexual desires, trees, fruits, etc. The female is not dormant but vibrates a latent power". Rodwittiya's exhibition (Oct 12-20) presented by Sakshi Gallery at Triveni Kala Sangam is enigmatically packaged as Once Upon a Time. The artist says, "it alludes to both the personal and collective territories that I inhabit, which are the yin and yang of my existence. This 'sequence of paintings'... forms a metaphorical bracket within which the autobiographical is hinted at obliquely; locating birth, identity, gender-politics, motherhood and other nuanced factors of a witnessed world..." Ahem! Ignore the malapropisms, the jargon and the cliché but don't miss the shows. -By S. Kalidas |
| | PAINTING | | Perceptive Art | | | MUMBAI Delve deep into your heart and you will realise that our identities are framed by our perception of ourselves. Conflux, an exhibition of paintings by Cariya Breeman, explores this very perception of reality within the context of our inner complex world. Part of a series launched by Breeman in January 2006 in New York with the showing of her "Pure Collection", which included 12 paintings in white texture, Conflux will be on display at the Jamaat Art Gallery till November 5.
-By Aditi Pai |
| | FILM REVIEW | | Factual Fiction | | | PICTURE SPEAK | |  | | COUPLE TROUBLE: Ahuja and Ranaut | | WOH LAMHE
Director: Mohit Suri
Starring: Shiney Ahuja, Kangana Ranaut The way to enjoy this allegedly factual film is to treat it as fiction. That is, disconnect it from the tragically messy Mahesh Bhatt-Parveen Babi love story, which the filmmaker has unashamedly rehashed several times since Arth in 1982. Also, there are some glaring loopholes in logic, which need to be overlooked-a famous film star runs around on Mumbai streets and later does a disappearing act from Goa without attracting any attention. Even more improbably, the star's sickness-schizophrenia-ebbs and erupts conveniently to suit the plot. But Woh Lamhe still holds interest because it has a taut script and fine performances. Ahuja playing a director, who first uses the star to be successful and then against his better judgement falls in love with her and tries to save her from herself, is superbly restrained. His eyes convey the doom built into this relationship. Ranaut cannot match the searing desperation of Smita Patil in Arth but her performance has attitude. She is not afraid to be ugly or emotionally naked. Suri uses both ably to retell a familiar story persuasively. -By Anupama Chopra |
| | FASHION | | What Men Want | BANGALORE It's the right time of the year to be in Bangalore for a gentleman of taste and a man of leisure. If you thought that fashion was all about women's wear and accessories, then a must-attend event is the Castle India Men's Fashion Fair to be held between October 11 and 14 at the Palace Grounds. With the opulent Bangalore Palace as the stunning backdrop, the event will showcase fashion, trends and style with an emphasis on India's leading men's wear designers and brands. There will be shows and stars in what is being highlighted as a fashion weekend in Bangalore. The participants' list is studded with heavyweights.Wendell Rodricks, Hemant Trivedi, Rohit Bal, J.J. Valaya, Raghavendra Rathore, Rohit Gandhi and Rahul Khanna are among the 35-odd designers who will display their latest designs. The much-awaited participants include Shobhaa De in her new avatar as designer and Srikantadatta Wodeyar, the Maharaja of Mysore, who designs a royal collection in silk each season. The international brigade has Bibi Russel from Bangladesh, Samuel and Kevin from Hong Kong and Martin Anderson from England. So if you're a man who goes for suits and ties, head straight to the fair. As for the metrosexuals who prefer skirts and stoles and everything cool, they won't be disappointed too. -By Nirmala Ravindran |
| | RECOMMENDATIONS | | Deep Contrast | | DELHI Apparao Galleries presents two exhibitions by the Chennai-based painter-photographer George K. simultaneously at the Triveni Garden Theatre and the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra. The exhibition is on from October 5 to 15. This businessman-turned-artist combines text, photo-images and paint to create immensely engaging works that cover Kashmir to Kanyakumari. His Kashmir works depict burqa-clad Kashmiri women and deserted or empty cityscapes worked over with graffitti and blotches of paint applied with a palette-knife. The second theme is the celebration of the Kuttandavar-Aravan festival in Villupuram district of Tamil Nadu where hijras (the transgender community) gather in remembrance of an episode from the Mahabharata. -By S. Kalidas | | |
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