Breaking musical barriers

Doordarshan plans to film the entire festival and air it in serialised episodes on both the national channel DD Bharti and the international channel,DD India. “The festival is a one-of-a-kind event and its classical music theme will appeal to our audience,” says a Doordarshan official adding,“We have filmed the entire festival in Pune. Once the editing is complete,we’ll know how many episodes we’ll have exactly but it could be between 10 to 15 episodes.”

Pramod Joshi,founder of the Usha Swapna Foundation,that organised the event in collaboration with the Odisha government,says,“It is the first time something like this is happening and the fact that Doordarshan has also come into the picture is heartening.”

The Odishi musicial style is perhaps explained best by Odishi dance master,Aruna Mohanti. “Odishi music is softer,with a slower pace. It moves like a wave and goes up and down and sometmes even in circular sound effects,” she says. A lot of the differences between the two styles can be attributed to the languages used.” The pronunciations for Oriya,she says,are different from that of Hindi and artistes have to ensure that the sing in a way that is both musically and grammatically correct so they have to watch their pauses and where they place an emphasis while singing. “So when you’re changing from Oriya to Hindi,it’s actually quite complicated and it’s a compliment to the masters who will be performing that they’ve taken up the challenge,” adds Mohanti. She has performed at all major cities in India and has travelled to 30 cities in USA,Germany,UK and Portugal.

As the language and the music changes,so does the dance,she points out. So Mohanti performed Odishi style dances,that were slightly different and inspired by the accompanying Hindustani music.

For Joshi,the event posed a different challenge. “I have been organising Malhar Avishkar since 1998 with different themes but this year is different because so many renowned artistes are coming from Orissa. It was quite a task to find so many artistes willing to perform Raga Malhar and then they had to be willing to do it in Hindustani style,” he says.