 The Other Festival
An artist, an icon
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| Anita Ratnam |
Chennai is all set for The Park's The Other Festival. Now in its seventh avatar, The Park's The Other Festival brings an international array of talent in
music, dance, theatre and celluloid magic from December 1-7 at the Chinmaya Heritage
Centre, Chennai.
The title sponsor and host for the event continues to be The Park,
Chennai.
This year features the widest range of countries yet, with noted diasporic talent, as well as the most diverse genres to be showcased. Another new thrust is an outreach component to the festival's activities, with select artistes visiting city colleges and interacting with the
community. For the first time too, a five-day film festival - Experimenta at The Park's The Other Festival - runs parallel at the Film Chamber of Commerce.
Speaking on the accolades the event has garnered over the years,
Anita
Ratnam, co-artistic director of the festival, says, "Art and entertainment appeal to our higher instincts. It embraces aesthetics, ethics and politics and transcends the compulsions of a here and now. Our festival has struck that chord and pioneered its own identity into Chennai's changing cultural landscape."
Commenting on the synergy between the festival's relationship with The Park, V V Giri, general manager, The Park, declares, "The Park is delighted to be embarking on its third year of association with The Other Festival. Truly led by design, the spaces at The Park Hotels are an experience of a sensational journey through art, which is not an isolated pursuit, but intimately connected with all aspects of human life. The Park's The Other Festival offers nothing less than a concrete new way to express the infinitely complex operations of human intelligence in artistic form."
 Co-artistic director Ranvir Shah concurs that the festival's alternative approach is here to stay. "Seven years of consistent creative newness has met with an overwhelming response from artistes and audience alike. Our mandate is clear - to support and explore 'other' endeavours of the artistic world."
The Park's The Other Festival opens December 1 with exciting performances in music, dance and theatre. Renowned Finnish composer Eero Hameenniemi and Finnish virtuoso musicians, Minna Pensola and Roi Ruottinen, accompanied by Indian compatriots A. Durgaprasad and R Ramesh, premiere a specially commissioned work for the festival, 'Mylapore Variations'. The work explores different variation techniques used in Carnatic and Western music, including both pre-determined (theme and variations, sangatis) and improvised variations.
It will be followed by a distinctly South Asian American perspective in contemporary dance with 'Quiet/Fire' from New York-based major talent and innovative choreographer Parijat Desai & Dancers. Her work, blending Bharatanatyam, modern/post-modern dance and yoga, has been described as "matching technical sophistication with thematic relevance", communicating ideas across lines of language, culture, and nation.
 Although The Park's The Other Festival clearly states in its publicity that 'children below 12 years are not admitted', this year it has thrown open one day exclusively for kids during its annual celebration of the performing arts through music, dance drama and art. An
Alliance Francaise collaboration on December 2 features French master artiste in shadow puppetry Jean-Luc Penso & 'Theatre du Petit Miroir', bringing 'Fox Story'. A delightful
shadow puppet musical that offers wit, colour and all the fantasy, extravagance and freshness that shadow puppet theatre can offer. A purely French-inspired work in terms of the shadows, the puppets and the music, 'The Fox Story' has been cleverly adapted to a modern context and promises Chennai kids a fun-filled evening of high spirits, music and laughter.
December 3 will open with a solo theatrical interlude "Mr C", from Israel's actor, director and singer, Gil Alon. 'Mr C' is the first cloned person, released from the laboratory, to offer his first lecture. During the lecture, his life will unfold in a surprising way.
It will be followed by UK-based Chitraleka Bolar's multimedia spectacle, 'The Story of C'. Inspired by Primo Levi's dreams in Auschwitz, six dancers unfold a modern 'sacred story', told through classical Indian dance, incorporating thousands of years of understanding of the complex interaction between human beings and the natural world.
One of Canada's most acclaimed dancers and choreographers, Denise Fujiwara holds the spotlight on December 4. Her critically-acclaimed solo 'Sumida River' is the haunting tale of a woman in search of her stolen child. Created in the striking Japanese modern dance-theatre form, Butoh, Fujiwara dances a delicately nuanced performance of a mother's journey of love and surrender.
 December 5 features a Goethe
Institute-Max Mueller
Bhavan-Daimler Chrysler collaboration, featuring German contemporary dance talent at its best. Modern dance and dance-theatre in Germany reflects a multi-cultural, multi-ethnic aesthetic and politique. Experimentations diffuse the line of performance and the performed life. Leading German choreographer Constanza Macras has stirred a lot of interest with her productions that adopt intriguing methods of creation and process. On a whirlwind tour of India, Macras brings her latest work 'Back to the Present', a site-specific performance with memory as looped feedback, live performances, dance, music and videos forming a space installation.
December 6 begins with solo performance art by dynamic artiste, poet,
truth speaker and activist, D'lo. The Sri Lankan expatriate, now based in the US, uses music and comedy through her message-oriented art to communicate enlightened hope. She is followed by theatre artiste Arjun Raina (New Delhi), who brings the Chennai premiere of his new theatre solo, 'A terrible beauty is born!'. A stand-up tragedy about international call centres, the play is set in New York and Gurgaon, exploring a strange new world of fake accents and identities.
The Park's The Other Festival closes with youth and theatre on December 7. Directed by Ramu Ramanathan, 'The Sanjivani Super Show!' is an adaptation of noted playwright Adya Rangacharya's classic Kannada work 'Sanjivani', translated into English by Usha Desai. An amalgamation of myth and reality, the play makes a statement on the perception of love and value systems in contemporary life by members of Out of Context, a group of young students from the Kamala Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Architecture
(Mumbai).
From December 2-6, 2004, there will be an avant-garde film festival at the Film Chamber of Commerce.
Experimenta at The Park's The Other Festival is curated by Bombay-based Shai Heredia who has for the last 2 years organised this cutting-edge festival in Bombay and Delhi. Experimenta showcases the experimental works of visionary Indian film-makers from the '60s and '70s, and contemporary Indian films that explore ideas around experimental film ethnography. In association with The British Council, Experimenta also offers Chennai film buffs an exciting range of works from the British avant-garde that focus on the exploration of film as art. For more details on the film festival call Prakriti Foundation at 044 -24465415.
Donor passes for the seven-day event are available at Chennai's The Park and Alliance
Francaise.
For more details, check
www.theotherfestival.com
or contact Arangham Trust at 044- 2852 4917, e-mail at aratnam@vsnl.com
Daily tickets at Rs 50 will be available at the Chinmaya Heritage Centre, Chennai, from December 1-7 from 7 p.m. onwards.
RR
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