A recent staging of Prasavitri: The Faces of Motherhood, on the open lawn of Daga Nikunj, turned out to be an adventure in clever storytelling and powerfully communicative solo dancing. Enakshi Sinha’s Yashoda’s Ramayan in Odissi, choreographed by Sharmila Biswas, rethinks Krishna’s mother as a well-rounded character who is as exasperated by her recalcitrant little son as she is gentle in her nurture, even as she is startled by an inkling of the powers he possesses. The extraordinary flair in Divya Warier’s The Lost Lullaby, mentored and choreographed by Biswas over the past two years, owes much to the multiple layering of stories about Ghatotkach’s mother, Hidimbi, culled from varied literary sources. An inquiring eye for detail in fleshing out the different narratives, remarkably mature abhinaya and perky dancing add to its richness.
The story of Yashoda and Krishna is a delightful and timeless one that explores the mother-son bonding with well-imagined details and innovatively devised movements. Sinha’s Yashoda is a wholesome mother who plumbs the depths of her instincts to conjure up compelling scenes from the Ramayana to amuse her child.
In turning her gaze upon Hidimbi, Biswas continues with her exploration of how to tell stories in a captivating manner. In this piece, there are sharp shifts from doting mother to amusing raconteur of romantic encounters to mourning for an offspring. Warier’s very credible characterisation of Bhima’s demoness wife is a lot of things at once: luminous, brazen, primal, fierce, tender and uninhibited. She infuses extraordinary dynamism in her form, Mohiniattam, which transcends its rigid contours to become a supple medium for her to tell her haunting tale of love, anger and betrayal. An intense overlay of drama in her use of the lyrical monologue, which she delivers with practised ease, makes this work a sublime tour de force of dance theatre. The Lost Lullaby is a marvellously poised piece that plays with a host of complex emotions and Warier stands out as a dancer of unusual depth and panache.
