| The Other Festival -
2000
Dec 1- 7, 2000. Museum Theatre, Chennai (Madras) India. Music. Dance. Drama. Art. You. |
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7.15pm, THEATRE - “GANAPATI”
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Presented by Adishakti (Pondicherry), “Ganapati” is the latest, avant-garde theatre creation by noted director, Veenapani Chawla. The result of a collaborative work supported for one year project by the India Foundation for the Arts and the Sir Ratan Tata Trust on “Music as a Text in Koodiyattam and Contemporary Theatre”, the aim of the collaborators was to create a theatre piece which employed music/ percussion rhythms as a signifier of content. The Ford Foundation supported the project in its second year of research and formulation. |
| “GANAPATI”, an interpretation of the birth stories related to the myths of Ganapati/ Martanda, is concerned with creations and creativity. As rituals commemorate myths the performance begins by depicting the ritual creation of Ganapati by a group of artisans for the annual festival celebrating his birth. From formless clay Ganapati emerges into iconic form but at the end of the festival, the icon is taken away from the place of worship and dissolved in water. But the next year it is recreated to be worshipped again. A similar process takes place in the myth when Parvati forms Ganapati out of her bodily substance and Siva destroys and then recreates him. The Ganapati myths thus reflect a protean form of narrative which gives rise to multiple simultaneous interpretations. |
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