Senses of Life
……..a life’s story
Trailer : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u7iXyLYUe4s&t=4s
The story behind:
It was one regular morning; with me busy packing lunch for my kids all the while chatting with my sister when the idea popped up. I noted down the thought in the additional settings of my mobile alarm so as not to forget it. It sat there for a rather long time. I wanted to present it as a solo feature on stage sometime. But the pandemic ruled out the possibilities. As I was going over my options to do it online, the thought of doing it in a group occurred. It would be interesting to know the perspectives of my fellow dancers and how they would interpret the same scenarios. Thus evolved, “Senses of Life – a life’s story”, collaborative feature involving four other extremely talented dancers and five amazing musicians.
It was going to be life’s journey – one story through the eyes of different protagonists at different times. I wanted even male perspective of life and hence we have four female artistes and one male artiste in the production. I wanted to experiment with the music – one background instrument for each one of us, no existing compositions or lyrics of any sort. I am very lucky in the sense that all my fellow artistes not only liked the concept very much, but also agreed to my ideas immediately. So here we are, 5 artistes, using 5 props (properties) and 5 different instruments for the back-ground scores taking you through one journey – the journey of life!
Of course, challenges were aplenty! We were all from different places and also with the lock-down etc; all our interactions were strictly restricted to whatsapp calls and text messages. Of course, poor internet connectivity took advantage of its position. As practitioners of bharatanatyam very much used to lyrics and compositions – to create music from scratch and adapt it to our story was very refreshing. We experimented with western instruments like piano too. Then came the choreography and characterizations. Unlike sanchaaris in bharatanatyam, where we transform into any character we want just by a twirl, here, we were supposed to show all the characters through the eyes of the protagonist here without actually becoming the character. This was totally a different ballgame. Add to all this, the fact that the five of us, irrespective of gender, had to maintain the story line without deviating from the concept.
It was a great learning experience for me – from conceptualization, to planning, to coordinating, to actually bringing out the production. I had fun during the entire process. It was an exciting and equally exhilarating journey for all of us. Also, I was blessed to have on-board my video editor, a young talented multi-talented artiste, Vinay Datta, who exactly understood what I wanted and did the editing beautifully. The conceptualization, and all other ground work like choosing artistes started much earlier, but from actually talking to artistes to premiering it online, it took 40days.
Do sit back and enjoy at the comfort of your homes!!
Testimonials:
Namaste Geetaji,
“My congratulations to all dancers and musicians wonderful concept and wonderful choreography and all of you have done such a amazing work , my best wishes to entire team for all your future endeavours.”
Ustad Rafique Khan, Senior Sitarist
“It was very interestingly done Sirisha! Enjoyed it! The dancers were so apt for the progression too! Great job! Congratulations!”
Dr. Anupama Kylash, Vilasininatyam exponent
“The concept from childhood to old age is very vividly brought out by each artist. You presented the most challenging aspect of childhood. You brought out true innocence!! The child was alive in you. Congratulations on this wonderful creation. Congratulations to all the artists and musicians”
Vijayashree, Bharatanatyam dancer.
“It’s too good. Release of production on website is much more commendable because we can watch it how many ever times we want. I have watched it twice already!!”
Dr. Manjiri Shekhar, Pediatric Surgeon
