Today’s Tagore

The event will be showcased in the city on March 3 and 4,at Ishanya Mall,and will present Ritu Chakra,Street of Voices and With Love which combine strands from Tagore’s writings and re-imagine them through contemporary movements. The whole effort essentially marvels at his ideas,spanning genres as wide-ranging as feminism,education and children’s tales,and shows how relevant they still are.

Ritu Chakra is inspired by Tagore’s expansive lyrical work on the seasons. “He wrote 200 songs on the seasons,of which we’ve reinterpreted 11,” says Sarabhai,who will be a part of all three showcases. She doesn’t reveal much about the form of the performance,but says that two contemporary songs will re-interpret the instrumentation of the original songs,while the programme’s narrative moves from summer to spring. Australian dancer Liz Lea,Sarabhai,her son Revanta,and the Darpana Performing Group will present this segment set to Shashank Acharya and Sandeep Pillai’s music.

Street of Voices is a pastiche of puppetry,dance,acting and film that will be steered by Scottish puppetry theatre director,Symon Macintyre,with original music provided by Pillai. “We have taken a letter written by Tagore’s wife,and interspersed her voice with the voices of women today. It (the letter) is an astonishingly feminist piece,and unfortunately,it still holds true,” says Sarabhai.

With Love is a look at Tagore beyond his words and tries to strip his image and reveal his human face. Alter plays Tagore and Sarabhai,the Argentine writer,Victoria Ocampo,in this presentation. “It is to find out who this bearded,handsome person really was,who lost all the women in his life by the time he was 30. Did he have an enduring love? Did he have doubts?” she says.

The most important preparation of this exercise has been the exhaustive research which swept everyone at Darpana. “We encouraged everyone,even the accountant,to read any writing of Tagore. They did,and we had many discussions,” she says.