Friends,
Sutra’s docu-film Radha Unbound: The Making & Touring of Radhe! Radhe!, was screened at The Rex 04th April, 4.30pm.
The 37-min film was enthusiastically received by over 150 dance enthusiasts who thronged The Rex, most for the first time to the venue, since the iconic cinema was dramatically renovated. Most of the audience had been keen followers of Sutra’s Odissi over the years.
Unfortunately, the documentary film was shown in the absence of its Bangladeshi cameraman/film director, Rabby Deyan, who is presently back in Dhaka, Bangladesh, on a family visit.
Many are familiar with Rabby, who, in the last four years has been a quiet but ubiquitous presence. Rabby has been covering Sutra’s activities, first making short and quick videos and eventually graduating to longer and more complicated ones as the situations challenge his creative abilities in making interesting videos.
Rabby grew from strength to strength. His improved quick and efficient editing enabled him to be current in his video reporting. Eventually, Rabby not only covered the making of Radhe! Radhe! but also went with us on the India tour.
Radha Unbound represents Rabby’s most ambitious filming endeavour. Rabby, who has an aesthetic eye for drama, took wonderful footages that captured the intense interactions behind the glamour of the performance. The film captures and exposes the human drama between the gurus, musicians and dancers behind the scene, each asserting their demands to contribute to the living creative entity, which is the production itself.
Rabby gave other creative contributors such as Sivarajah Natarajan (the lighting designer), Bibhu Patnaik (master artist of Patachitra, whose works augment the production on LED screen) and costume designer, Tan Mei Mei, their deserving dues.
In Rabby’s documentary, one can sense besides the two senior gurus, Gajendra Panda and Ramli Ibrahim (who are co-artistic directors), it was principal dancer Geethika Sree who held her grounds, not just as the enigmatic Radha on stage, but also as the major coordinator who is in charge, driving the impulse, both creative and administrative, of the production.
Geethika, is Radha on and off stage; she is the creative force behind the total production.
Many of the guests had not been to The Rex since its transformation and they were pleasantly surprised. It is no longer the popular Rex of their era, one which they went for their dose of films – and mandatory visit to their favourite Snack Bar nearby. It is now a sleek sprawling digital joint with state of art 270 degrees screen all round the audience. And they loved the novel experience.
Sutra dancers opened with the Kiravani Pallavi, an excerpt from Radhe! Radhe! 2.0 to whet the appetite for what is to come next week at the actual performance of Radhe! Radhe! 2.0 staged at the TFA, Brickfields.
For the more subtle audience, the docu-film by Rabby Deyan left a pleasant aftertaste as a positive manifestation of the often touted soft-cultural diplomacy at its natural progression. A Bangladeshi film director documenting the cultural collaboration of Malaysia and India, says everything about the empowering ability of Arts to transcend racial and religious divides and other artificial barriers!
For those who would like to watch Radhe! Radhe! 2.0, you may book your tickets on cloudjoi.com:
https://www.cloudjoi.com/shows/5448-radhe-radhe-the-sweet-surrender-20-odissi/