Love and a Little Pollution

Before choreographing When the Gods Meet,Mansingh returned to her favourite stories from Indian and Greek mythologies. In those pages of high romances and bitter feuds,she found ways to comment not only on age-old issues of love but also recent fears of environmental degradation. She also realised how much the two cultures mirror each other’s stories. “Silk routes from India may not have reached Greece but Alexander the Great did arrive here and touch our civilisation in more than a military way. Even the sari is an echo of the Hellenic toga,” she says.

The one-hour piece comprises five segments,among them Psyche and Eros,which revolves around a marriage is as full of passion as it is riddled with suspicion. “One night,Psyche does something that ends the relationship forever,” says Mansingh. Contrast this with the story of Greek god Zeus and the human princess Europa whose love holds strong. “The stories show how lack of trust can ruin relationships. True love,on the other hand,lasts forever,like the necklace that Zeus gifted Europa and which can be seen in the sky to this day in the form of the constellation Taurus,” says Mansingh. The piece ends with two divine marriages — of Shiva and Parvati and the Greek earth god Gaia with the sky god Uranus.

Mansingh,whose previous works include Sita Swayamvara and chapters from the Bhagwad Gita,also revisits the story of Krishna defeating a poisonous snake,a symbol of pollution,in the segment Krishna-Kaaliya. She tackles the subject of arrogance in Mohini-Bhasmasura,an epic tale of demons,gods and a temptress.

Mansingh plays the sutradhar,assuming a different role in every segment. “‘I am the wife of Kaaliya in Krishna Kaaliya and the sister of Psyche in Psyche and Eros,thus creating a direct connect with the story and the audience,” says Mansingh. Though she is known as a classical dancer,Mansingh isn’t one to pit fusion forms against the classical. “Tradition is the process of moving forward,” she says,“Orthodoxy,on the other hand,is like stagnant water.”