DANCE AND DREAM

IIn 2010, Jayalakshmi Eshwar presented what was billed as India’s first Bharatanatyam fantasy opera. Called ‘Antariksha Sanchar’, it was inspired by Hindu mythology of flight and the

Vaimanika Shastra—an early 20th century Sanskrit text that makes the claim that the flying palaces and chariots described in the Mahabharata and Ramayana were advanced flying machines that have been lost in the mists of time.

This winter, the show returns with 3D animation, electronic music by Sri Rama Murthy aka Murthovic and new ideas, including the dream theories of mathematician S. Ramanujan. For Eshwar, this is not radical; it’s just following the diktat of her guru, Rukmini Devi Arundale, so that the classical form remains vibrant. “It is the duty of the older generation to keep alive the traditional way of dancing and make the younger generation embrace it,” she says.

Presented by Red Bull Music in Mumbai on November 22 and in New Delhi on December 5, the opera uses images from a video game created by Eshwar’s son, Avinash Kumar, to create a multimedia narrative that supplements the classical dance. Co-founder of the audio-visual group BLOT!, Kumar used archival images, folk paintings, 3D models of gods and 3D scans of sights in south India to “bridge Indian culture and ancient ideas with modern tools and audiences”.

The story has inspired him to make what he calls India’s first cultural adventure video game. In it, Eshwar is one of the characters narrating the story. Seven years in the making, it releases next year. The experience has made him value not only how “deep Indian classical arts are” but also appreciate his mother’s purist ways. “I hope to inculcate the same value in my work,” he says.