{"id":676,"date":"2021-09-15T13:21:49","date_gmt":"2021-09-15T13:21:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/?p=676"},"modified":"2024-08-21T03:19:01","modified_gmt":"2024-08-21T03:19:01","slug":"reinterpretation-of-kaikeyi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/reinterpretation-of-kaikeyi\/","title":{"rendered":"Reinterpretation of Kaikeyi – Odissi performance"},"content":{"rendered":"

Kaikeyi – the multi-faceted queen of Ramayana<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/h2>\n

The accomplished Odissi danseuse Sharmila Mukherjee talks about her creative production Kaikeyi. Potrayal of Kaikeyi, one of the most unusual and most misunderstood character of Indian mythology, is a very challenging subject indeed. Sharmila shares her journey and experience in the making of \u2018Kaikeyi\u2019 in this\u00a0 interesting and thought-provoking article.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Kaikeyi\u2019\u00a0 is an Abhinaya based piece in Odissi style. The presentation\u00a0 reinterprets\u00a0 the traditional portrayal of the character as a heartless manipulator and a wicked queen.\u00a0\u00a0Despite the flaws in her persona, Kaikeyi stands out in the epic because of the multitude of layers in her personality.\u00a0Kaikeyi is a warm hearted, complex woman, who loved Ram as much as she loved her own son. Her momentary emotion of despair and anger made her determined to see her son Bharat crowned as the king.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this production,\u00a0\u00a0Kaikeyi has\u00a0been\u00a0\u00a0portrayed as a loving wife, a doting mother, a dutiful queen and a brave warrior. She is gentle yet brave, sensitive yet strong willed and stubborn, passionate but slightly confused, a woman bent on getting her own way, even if it ultimately destroys her happiness. Her character is one of catharsis, beauty, bravery and a whole lot of love.<\/span><\/p>\n

Portrayal of Kaikeyi through Abhinaya – An Odissi dance performance<\/span><\/h2>\n

Performing Kaikayi has always been a challenge. This is an extremely\u00a0 dramatic piece which is\u00a0\u00a0interspersed with pure dance ( nritta<\/em><\/strong>) and a lot of abhinay<\/em><\/strong>, an integral part of Indian classical dance<\/a><\/span><\/strong>. The challenge lies in portraying different characters and their emotions. The dance starts with Kaikeyi as an old woman, reminiscing about the past, about how it\u00a0 all began and changed her life forever. She remembers driving the chariot for her husband, Dasarath in a battle where one of the wheels was damaged . In that moment while Kaikeyi is trying to repair the wheel , an arrow strikes Dasarath and injures him . Kaikaeyi drives him to safety and nurses him back to health .Touched by her devotion ,Dasarath promises her 2 boons, which she says she will keep for a later time.<\/span><\/p>\n

The 30 minute long piece takes you through a series of flashbacks from specific episodes of Ramayana. The costume<\/a><\/span><\/strong> in the solo performance has been carefully chosen to reflect the time and setting of the epic. The\u00a0 music for Kaikeyi has been composed by\u00a0Shri Bijoy Jena and the script is by Pt.Nityanand Mishra.<\/span><\/p>\n

Profile of the Production Director<\/span><\/h2>\n

Sharmila Mukherjee, is the founder and artistic director of Sanjali Centre for\u00a0 Odissi Dance in Bangalore which was established in 2004. Initiated into the Uday Shankar style of dance, Sharmila, at the young age of sixteen played the main role in Tagore\u2019s dance drama \u201cChandalika\u201d in Calcutta, and caught the attention of the critics. Sharmila started learning Odissi under the tutelage of Guru Kelucharan Mohapatra from 1984 in Kolkata. She also took lessons in Abhinay from Smt.Kalanidhi Narayan. Sharmila initially taught Odissi at Calcutta School of Music. She has worked with hearing impaired children at The Oral School for Deaf Children, Kolkata. A \u201cGrade A\u201d artist of Doordarshan and an Established artist of the ICCR. A Singar Mani from the Sur Singar Samsad( Mumbai), Sharmila was also conferred with the prestigious Mahari 2016\u00a0 award from the Guru Pankaj Charan Das Foundation (Orissa) and also the BCKA\u00a0 Kala Sreshtha Award from the Bangalore Club for Kathakali and the Arts in Bangalore. Sharmila has directed\u00a0 a number of productions, notable among them-Hansika(an adaptation of Swan Lake),Sookshma (based on the Flowering Tree by A.K Ramanujan) ,Kaikeyi and the poet,Kalidas\u2019s Ritusamharha among many others.<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

Find more about Sharmila at http:\/\/www.sharmilamukherjee.com\/<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Kaikeyi – the multi-faceted queen of Ramayana The accomplished Odissi danseuse Sharmila Mukherjee talks about her creative production Kaikeyi. Potrayal of Kaikeyi, one of the most unusual and most misunderstood character of Indian mythology, is a very challenging subject indeed. Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":677,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[109],"tags":[267,268,269,21,25,106,155,156,221,222,223,266],"class_list":["post-676","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-guest-writer-series","tag-ramayana","tag-kaikeyi","tag-odissi-dance","tag-heritage","tag-arteastic","tag-classical-dance","tag-culture","tag-odissi","tag-nritta","tag-nritya","tag-abhinaya","tag-epic"],"aioseo_notices":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=676"}],"version-history":[{"count":17,"href":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1625,"href":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/676\/revisions\/1625"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/677"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=676"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=676"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.arteastic.in\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=676"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}