BENGALURU : The world celebrates International Dance Day on April 29, but for city-based Bharatanatyam dancer Savitha Sastry, every day is a celebration of this art form. Sastry is riding the wave of success of her film Colors: White, which was released on YouTube two weeks ago. She describes the second film in her colours trilogy as her artistic autobiography.
The trilogy juxtaposes the colours of the national flag with the position of women in society. She chose white for herself because they represent truth and peace. The first film Colors: Green was released on September 25, 2020. The film’s protagonist – Sastry – talks about her own difficult journey in Bharatanatyam. When she started, she told mythological stories in classical dance, but she soon started to feel trapped in a box. When she tried to evolve her own style, there were many critics who thought she was questioning a system. It was “not an easy journey” when she tried to create something of her own from the existing knowledge she had.
“When you are learning something that is ancient, you don’t question this knowledge. But with dwindling audiences, and people losing interest in classical dance, it was a wake up call for me to find out what has changed in the audience,” says Sastry, adding that she was aware that there was a risk. The short film has also managed to catch global attention. It won the best director award at Paris Play Film Festival, France, it was among the finalists for best short film at the Lisbon Film Rendezvous, and was also nominated for best international narrative at the Toronto Film Festival.
Filmmaker A K Srikanth, who also happens to be Sastry’s husband, received the best director award for the film at Rosarito International Film Festival, Mexico. Srikanth says his primary focus in the movie was the narrator and the objective of the movie. “The movie was an elegant way of storytelling through Bharatanatyam, and while directing, I tried to make sure not to drift away from that,” says Srikanth.
Many might assume that being a dance movie, the film caters to a niche audience, but according to Srikanth, it could be the story of ‘every Indian woman’. “The idea, concept and even the meaning of the colour is based on Indian philosophy, so it won’t be difficult for people to understand it,” Srikanth says, adding that the idea was to reach out to a larger audience.