Recognised as heavenly angles, apsaras are frequently associated with divine music, captivating the deities with their dance performances. We encounter them through epics, mythologies and puranas that revolve around the happenings of gods, saints and devils. However, these beautiful ladies, who descended to earth to play their part in the story, are often overlooked and their sacrifices frequently go unnoticed. In homage to them, city-based bharatanatyam dancer Mithun Shyam has choreographed and designed a dance show titled Apsaraa – Beyond Her Dance, a multilingual thematic production starring Kavya Kasinathan. “This is a five-year-old production that we have given a dramatic twist to by introducing some new elements. In this production one can expect the life experiences of five well-known apsaras such as Tilottama, Ghritachi, Menaka, Rambha and Urvashi,” reveals Kavya Kasinathan.
With the production exploring different aspects of these apsaras’ lives, one can witness Ghritachi as a mother, Menaka as a lover, Tilottama as a warrior, Urvashi showcasing a woman’s pride and Rambha as the queen of apsaras. “These apsaras have acted as a catalyst in every epic or story but rarely have been credited enough for their work. They are just mentioned briefly while the other characters take centre stage. Hence we shed light on the amount of suffering that these apsaras go through, which is something that is never highlighted. Their emotions and feelings while being a part of the god’s ploy are what we depict through this production,” the dancer elaborates.
Initially, Kavya performed to live music, whereas the newer version will present multilingual music spanning five languages, each representing a classical dance style — Malayalam (mohiniyattam), Kannada (yakshagana), Telugu (kuchipudi), Tamil (bharatnatyam) and Sanskrit (kathak). The track is composed by renowned singer, writer and theatre practitioner — Karthik Hebbar. “This 55-minute solo performance that is structured in such a way the audience will receive answers to riddles as the tales unfolds. Karthik Hebbar has set the music in a very dramatic way where there are several dialogues involved and the lyrics for each language have been penned by different individuals,”
she shares.
₹299. January 5, 7 pm. At Medai — The Stage Bengaluru, Koramangala.