Jai Gurudev! to Rabindranath Tagore, with love

Nobel laureate, painter, writer, composer and thinker -Rabindranath Tagore was all that and much more. It is not easy capturing the work of a polymath like Tagore, but then danseuse Mallika Sarabhai loves a good challenge. 

So it should come as no surprise that Sarabhai began working on Tagorenama almost a year ago.  Given the fact that this year happens to be the 150th birth anniversary of Tagore, Gurudev became the theme for this year's Vikram Sarabhai International Art's Festival - Inter Art.

Aptly named Tagorenama, the three-day fest will have three performances - Ritu Chakra, Street of Voices and With Love -that will be staged at Darpana from December 28 to 30. The performances will capture every known facet of Tagore.

Tagorenama will later on be staged across the country in Kolkata, Pune, Bombay, Delhi, Jodhpur and Jaipur, among others.

"The intellectuals know about Tagore the writer, the arty types know of his paintings, the music lovers his poems. But who has ever attempted to know Tagore as a whole. We are attempting just that to not only showcase Tagore for the genius that he was but also for the man that he was," said Sarabhai.

As part of her research Sarabhai not only read Tagore but also got in touch with all those who wrote about him. "The three performances are the byproduct of what everybody at Darpana read, knew, thought and felt about Tagore," said Sarabhai.

She has put together a team of actors, dancers, choreographers and set designers spanning across several countries.
Sarabhai feels that Tagore was much ahead of his time and the issues that he raised 100 years ago about women's rights, polarisation of society, nationalism and such remains relevant still.

"What we have tried is to bring out this 'contemporariness' of Tagore and his work," said Sarabhai.

Ritu Chakra, a dance performance, and the first to be performed as part of Tagorenama, attempts the same. It has made use of some 11 poems of Gurudev with a different perspective and music score to portray the change in seasons.

The second in the list of performances is Street of Voices, which has been devised, written and directed by Symon Macintyre. It makes use of puppets, actors, dancers and audio visuals to tell the tale of today's women. It is an attempt to get their voices heard and is inspired by Gurudev's short story titled The Wife's Letter.

Talking about why he chose 'The Wife's Letter' as an inspiration for Street of Voices, Symon said, "The story is still relevant. It talks of women's emancipation and it has a real connection to the women who live in India today." Symon believes that Tagore's ideas and philosophies were way ahead of his time. "Tagore was not trapped in the era he was born in," said Symon.

Sandeep Pillai, who gave the musical score for the performance, said he made use of unusual props to create the same. "It was an attempt to create the sort of music that Gurudev would have made had he been alive today," said Pillai.

Steve Mayer Miller, a theatre personality from Australia, who is in Darpana to work on 'With Love,' said one of the inspirations for this performance came from several of the letters that Tagore wrote to Victoria Ocampo, an Argentinean writer and intellectual who is also believed to be his lover.

Miller, who along with Sarabhai co-scripted and directed, With Love said, "Tagore wrote about love. He wrote some of the most profound stories I have come across. Yet, he himself found it difficult to express it."

With Love also attempts to bring together both the elder and younger version of Tagore on stage. While Tom Alter plays the elderly Tagore, Revanta Sarabhai plays the younger version of him. 

Talking about how he went about playing Tagore, Revanta said, "Very little record of Tagore as a youth is available. But I drew my inspiration from what he wrote and the anecdotes from his life." Revanta said he also worked with Alter whenever he was here to ensure a consistency in the way the elder and younger version of Tagore was presented.