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Adding an Indian touch

Ballet
Last Updated 29 May 2012, 13:55 IST

Who doesn’t know about the fairy tale, ‘Cinderella’? There’s nobody who hasn’t grown up listening to ‘Cinderella’ or even watching an animated version of the same.
The Indianised version of ‘Cinderella’ was performed by the artistes of Prabhath Kalavidaru at Ravindra Kalakshetra in the City recently.

There were ten scenes in the ballet and every scene had a song.
Harish Prabhath, the co-ordinator and lead performer of the ballet, said, “We didn’t want to perform ‘Cinderella’ in the regular play format. It would be quite monotonous for people to listen only to dialogues, hence, songs come as a welcome break. It was a conscious decision to introduce a lot of lyrics into the ballet.”

The ballet is similar to the original tale, it is just that the scriptwriter N K Satyanarayan introduced fairies and a clown, all in an effort to make it humourous and watchable for all age groups.

“The ballet is originally a Western tale that is adapted. We thought a few additions would add a lot of charm to the piece,” he added.
   
The abusive stepmother and stepsisters, played by Rohini and Nutan and Yamuna respectively, were brought out very well. The prince, played by Harish, was expressive and very swift in his movements. The scene where he attempts to find Cinderella is extremely poignant.

The introduction of the clown is a welcome break. The clown breaks into a jig or two on stage in every scene. The entire ballet has seven to eight props.
“The biggest challenge was to switch the props in keeping with the change in scenes. We barely had three minutes to role out a different prop and that was quite a challenge,” observed Harish and added, “the new music, new stage settings and latest lighting techniques provide a contemporary touch.”

Those in the audience comprised people of all age groups. The hall was packed to the hilt and people were seen standing on the aisle.

Savitha Prakash came with her four-year-old daughter Rakshitha.
“I’ve read the story out to my daughter and I wanted her to watch the play. It’s different when it is read from a book and when you actually watch it. She was thrilled,” she said.

Subash Narayan, a theatre lover, said, “I didn’t think that ‘Cinderella’ could be Indianised but this troupe proved that it could be made interesting with songs and humourous situations.”

The ballet is directed by T V Gopinathdas and choreographed by Hema Panchamukhi.
The music is by Mysore Ananthaswamy and Praveen D Rao. The rest of the cast comprises Deepashree Harish, Vishwanath Kattimani, Balasubramanya
and Shanthala.

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(Published 29 May 2012, 13:55 IST)

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