BENGALURU: A Flowering Tree, a Kannada folklore introduced to English readers by A K Ramanujan, has now been adapted into an Odissi dance drama, Sookshma. The production premieres today.
The story, set in northern Karnataka, is about a young girl, the second daughter of a poor family, who uses a boon that lets her turn into a flowering tree to earn a living. The girl’s sister plucks the blooms off the tree, and the two make garlands from them to sell.
The prince of the kingdom discovers the girl’s little secret, and persuades his parents to get her married to him. She performs the miracle every night for her husband till his sister’s jealousy brings about suffering for the couple.
While the story progresses to end on a happily-ever-after note, Odissi exponent Sharmila Mukerjee, who has conceptualised Sookshma, promises a twist in her production.
“Well, I don’t want to give the dance drama away,” says the dancer whose Sanjali Centre students make up the 16-member cast. “But it deviates from Ramanujan’s story.”
She first thought up the production a year ago. “I applied for a Ministry of Culture grant, and started working on the choreography simultaneously.” she says. “We recorded the music in Kolkata after the grant came through.”
She says she knows nothing of other stage adaptations – John Adams came out with a two-act opera of A Flowering Tree in 2006 – nor has she watched Girish Karnad’s directorial Cheluvi that the folk tale has inspired. Moreover, she had to edit out parts of the story to tighten the production to 70 minutes.
The production, like the tale, carries a strong message, she explains. “The girl turning into a tree smybolises giving. I’ve also tried to retain the theme of (conserving) the environment and adapted it to Odissi as well as possible,” she says. “We’ll know how well it has worked in the evening.”
The dance drama is titled after a character of Mukerjee’s creation. “Sookshma, meaning energy in Sanskrit, is the one who grants the boon. It’s a small role, which I play,” she says. “The young girl, Chenni, required a younger artiste.”
Scoring the music and intermingling cultures – Odissi and folk forms of Karnataka -- have been by far the most interesting parts of the creative process, she says.
“In a couple of places we have introduced the mridangam with the pakhawaj, the percussion instrument traditionally used in Odissi recitals. And though we haven’t adapted too much for the production, it was great learning about the folk dances of the state,” says the dancer who has made Bengaluru her home from 2004.
The artistes will be dressed in kachhes, the women in sarees and the men in panches. “We use the regular props: flowers, baskets, pots. There are shlokas, music, lines, pure dance and abhinaya,” she says.
The greatest challenge, she says, was blending in elements from other folk forms and another culture. “We had to make sure that these weren’t too overpowering because, after all, this is an Odissi ballet,” she admits.
While the drama is mostly in Sanskrit, it has a few Kannada lines, presumably to retain some nativity. “Krishnaraj Bhat, a city-based scholar, helped us translate it into Sanskrit,” she says.