Led by Bharat & Sharat Prabhat, the group presented a blend of Kathak and Bharatanatyam for the inaugural performance. (Supplied)
Margazhi is one of the most auspicious months in the Tamil calendar. Starting around mid-December, it’s also the time when Chennai celebrates classical music and dance forms with renowned artistes gathering to perform at temples, sabhas and auditoriums across the city.
As year after year, the season only gets bigger in the neighbouring city, why can’t there be a season to celebrate performing arts in Bengaluru? And that thought prompted city-based Odissi dancer Preeti Banerjee to start Margazhi Bengaluru at MEDAI, a performing arts space in the city.
Spread over one week, the festival will have one dance group performing each day. (Supplied)
“The idea came up when Gowtham (programming coordinator & co-founder of MEDAI) and I were backstage during a classical show. He mentioned that the Margazhi season in Chennai was about to begin. As we spoke more about it, we thought why not do something similar in Bengaluru,” shares Banerjee.
The five-day festival kicked off on Monday, 25 December with a sold-out show by Prabhas Arts International. Led by Bharat & Sharat Prabhat, the group presented a blend of Kathak and Bharatanatyam for the inaugural performance.
“It is not that shows don’t happen in Bengaluru, but it is spread across the city. The idea was to bring the entire fraternity to one place, MEDAI Bengaluru, which not only provides the performance space but also has one of the best lighting and acoustics in the city,” she notes.
As this is the first edition of Margazhi Festival in Bengaluru, the team decided to keep it small. Spread over one week, the festival will have one dance group performing each day.
The team plans to make it a month-long festival next year. (Supplied)
“We were lucky enough to get an amazing line-up for the festival,” Banerjee shares.
On the second day, there will be an Odissi performance by Madhulita Mohapatra with Nrityantar Ensemble presenting a production on Colours of Krishna. On the third day, Avanthika Dance Space institute of Smt. Sreelakshmy Govardhanan, will present Kuchipudi Kathanam by the young ensemble members of the institute. The fourth day will see a Kathak performance by Jayeeta Dutta & her institute Nahabat Institute of Performing Arts and they will be presenting Dashashwamedh The Enchanting Stories of Varanasi. The last day will see BhavaNuta -A Sampoorna Adhyatma Ramayana a Kuchipudi performance by Acharya Deepa Narayanan Sashindran.
“We started working on the line-up the very next day after we discussed the idea of Margazhi Bengaluru. The main concern was the artistes’ availability as most of them will be booked for December. But luckily, almost all of the artistes we approached agreed immediately. Those who couldn’t, expressed their interest to take part next year,” Banerjee shares.
“Everyone was appreciative of the initiative. Some artistes said that it was necessary to have a dedicated program like this in Bengaluru,” she adds.
For next year, the plan is to make it bigger and spread over one month to bring in not just dance but music, workshops, all art forms, young upcoming artists along with established artists.
“We didn’t want to bring here what is done in Chennai. The crowd in both the cities are different so we have to tweak it for the audiences here,” Banerjee notes.
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She adds, “In the coming years, I don’t want to just do the dance forms but also music, workshops, conferences, lecture demonstrations among others. Since we have received great feedback from artists and audiences alike, we want to make it a larger, month-long festival next year.”
Talking of the challenges of putting something like this together, Banerjee shares, “Bengaluru is an IT hub. Everyone is working here. So to bring them to MEDAI repeatedly for five days straight is going to be the main challenge. But that’s a risk all event organisers will have to take while curating a festival like this.”
Banerjee also wants to stress on why the shows are not free.
“Art isn’t free and artists shouldn’t have to perform for free either. It’s an ongoing debate. There are people who expect these shows to be free but they should understand that everyone is spending money on this. If you can pay for a ticket to watch a movie, why shouldn’t you do that to watch a live performance as well? So all our shows are ticketed and we don’t want to change that,” she signs off.
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