Aadyam opens in Delhi with Bandish 20 – 20000HZ!
New Delhi, May: Traversing seven decades through engaging anecdotes that chronicle time, relationships and culture, Purva Naresh’s Bandish 20-20000 Hz will soon open the 2017 edition of Aadyam in New Delhi. The Aditya Birla Group’s theatre initiative will return this year with five new productions spanning a myriad of genres. Bandish 20-20000 Hz will see three performances over May 27 and 28 at the Kamani Auditorium.
Says Aadyam artistic director Divya Bhatia, “A senior yesteryear singer is to be awarded during a ceremony in a small village to commemorate her 70-year career. She is joined in the green by another senior artist of a different discipline and two contemporary singers. Through the exchange of their various anecdotes, interspersed with songs that drive the story forward, Bandish 20-20000Hz explores the complexities and compulsions of relationships. Through these stories, we look at how things that were once dear to us may over time become redundant or inconsequential. How the politics of relationships function and make us function. How humans are often governed by their pride or ego.”
Bandish 20-20000Hz, is a story of two singers, one a nautanki singer and the other a baithak (classical) singer. Both performers relive their glory days and have witty anecdotes to share. Anecdotes of escapes from kings’ palaces, slapping British officers, getting kidnapped by the local rangeeley zamindars, refuting lovelorn Nawabs and getting duped by charming and conniving men in the name of love and marriage. Each anecdote is accompanied by a musical and a dance number, and is an exploration into time and seeing things with a revived and perhaps revised perspective.
Says director Purva Naresh, “It is a play about four artistes, two of whom are yesteryear singers from different disciplines. As they reminisce and dwell in some alluring nostalgia, they also work through human politicking, generational and cultural gaps with the other two young artistes, as the younger ones are affected by the conversations between them. They travel through time via their stories and look through life and relationships with some renewed perspective.”
Sticking to her forte, Purva’s play will have a good mix of music ranging from Nautanki and Baithak to a lively Bombay ditty that dates back to the time of the Raj. This Manglacharan was written in English during the British times, in respect of Queen Elizabeth. Although it is hilarious, it still remains a firm piece of musical and cultural history. Says Divya, “A trained dancer and Pakhawaj player, a solid writer and a good director, Purva through her various interests and inherent passion, is constantly looking to conjure up ‘total theatre’; one that subsumes every aspect of a production. She brings a distinct rustic sensibility to a production and is someone who has a maximum grasp on all aspects of theatre. When she looked to do it for Aadyam, she had pitched it for the black box format. Over discussions, we knew that there’s so much more than can be explored with the script. She went back to the storyboard, to develop characters and a larger plot. And she came back with Bandish. One of the things we at Aadyam do is constantly encourage people who are doing good work, to improvise and think bigger.”
Schedule : Bandish by Aarambh
Delhi
May 27th, Saturday – 7:30 PM – Kamani Auditorium
May 28th, Sunday – 4 PM & 7:30 PM – Kamani Auditorium
Cast & Credits:
Writer & Director:
Purva Naresh
Cast:
Danish Husain
Anubha Fatehpuria
Nivedita Bhargava
Ipshita Chakraborty Singh
Hitesh Malukani
Rajiv Kumar
Harsh Khurana
Pranita Pandurangi
Crew:
Arghya Lahiri (Light Designer)
Asmit Pathare (Light Designer)
Manish Kansara (Set Designer)
Manoj Sikka
Bhaavesh Gandhi (Choreographer)
Shubha Mudgal
Sudhan Singh Rajput
Sarika Singh (Creative Producer)
Niharika Dutt (Stage Manager)
Hari Jangid (Backstage)
Krutti Saxena (Backstage)
Lakshmi Nair (Backstage)