Thursday, Dec 4, 2003  

PRITHAM CHAKRAVARTHY (Chennai)   
“Vellavi,” Solo Theatre    

She Said, She Said     by Ranjith Bhaskar     Photos: Lalitha Venkat     December 5, 2003  As far as conversations go, Pritham Chakravarthy’s ‘Vellavi’ was a monologue. Addressed to no one in particular, yet directed at everyone. It is a narrative by the artist characterised as a traditional dhobi woman in Tamil Nadu and is based on a real person documented by Parthibaraja. The production was coordinated by A. Mangai and produced by Voicing Silence of  M S Swaminathan Research Foundation. This solo rendering in colloquial Tamizh, covering the socio-economic life of a traditional dhobi in remote Tamilnadu was premiered at Dalit Kalai Vizha in 1998 and has traveled to a variety of audiences since then.
From the handout: (Pritham is a playwright, director, performer, film critic and activist from Chennai. Recent performances include Meendum Meendum, Surya Mukam and Nirvanam - her own solo piece about aravanis.  The latter has toured India, the USA under a Fulbright Fellowship and 2002 Edinburgh International Festival.  She is presently working on Orientations, a theatre production by Border Crossings, which opened in October 2003 at Watermans in London, UK. This piece will tour the UK and India in 2004-05.)   ‘Vellavi’ was a just straight narrative. Pritham dressed in ‘dhobi-garb’ spoke to the audience while moving about picking up clothes and crushing and chewing betelnuts. She spoke about her family & her work, and other trivia.   The one thing I liked about Pritham’s narrative style was her sometimes unsettling direct gaze at the audience. She has the knack of holding a person’s eyes for effect – when talking or in pause. Such visual interaction with the audience is rare these days. She is a good actress through her movements. Her expressions, though, seemed a wee bit contrived, and her  accent, in some instances, sounded artificial and formal. Hard to lose the urbane? Or difficult to get under the dhobi’s skin? Pritham had an answer to that, of course. She said she was Pritham talking about the dhobi woman. Then, was I looking at Pritham looking at the dhobi? I found the performance a tad stilted. She kept saying later (not without a little contempt), that she consciously stayed away from the ‘filmi’ method of portraying such characters. Why she had to make a big deal of that I don’t know, considering the fact that her portrayal was off the mark too. The audience seemed to like it though.

  

Kolkata-based Jonaki Sarkar & Dancers’ Guild came on next with ‘She Said’, another of those mod contemporary-choreography ideas that are vague, without shape, or any particular mood, and certainly, not much substance.  From the handout: (Established in 1983 by Sangeet Natak Akademi Award winner Late Dr. Manjusri Chaki Sircar, Dancers’ Guild has been a premier institute of contemporary dance Navanritya, a new approach to Indian dance, in a “chemical synthesis” of traditional Indian dance forms, yoga and martial arts.  It is ‘open ended’ and ‘ever accommodative’ to new movements.
“She said” is the last choreographic creation of co-director Ranjabati Sircar and the group has decided to leave it as ‘unfinished’ with her sudden demise in 1999. It is an innovative approach towards exploring certain abstract images of the women’s world – its dream, desires, pains and passions. The piece performed by eight women dancers using the eloquence of silence, vocals and contemporary Bengali songs is a mosaic of multiple statements that finally merge to become one universal voice.)  The piece itself showcased the girls’ dancing skills, along with few basic kalaripayattu movements that have become a prerequisite for contemporary-dance choregraphy. A strip of red cloth, a few umbrellas, a crushed newspaper, a movable square. These were the props.  The music, by Kolkata band Chakravyuha, was a welcome distraction. The song ‘Ipshita’ was melodious, with rich guitar chording. The band was, in a way, discovered by Dancers’ Guild who later recorded the songs to be used in this production.  Women exploring their world is a fine thing. But to do it on stage in a cockamamie manner is a downright silly thing to do. ‘She Said’ made me sad. Not because of the mother-daughter-edgy-relationship undercurrent throughout, but because the dancers were so earnest and committed and worked hard to bring life to insipid choregraphy. They decidedly looked uncomfortable with hype.   Well, there’s choreography, and there’s outstanding choreography. There’s characterisation, then there’s stun-the-audience dramatisation. On both counts, not a memorable evening.     Ranjith Bhaskar lives and works in Chennai and can be reached at ranjithbhaskar@yahoo.co.uk     PRITHAM CHAKRAVARTHY (Chennai)   “Vellavi,” Solo Theatre   Photographs About Pritham Chakravarthy & Vellavi   JONAKI SARKAR & DANCERS GUILD (Kolkata)   “She Said,” Contemporary Dance (Group)   Photographs About Dancers Guild