CHENNAI: Rasikas gather. Rasikas share. Rasikas celebrate as artistes create and collaborate. It’s not December yet, but the annual Margazhi mood has set in. Only, this time, it’s rather sombre. With the pandemic shuttering down cultural institutions, Margazhi aficionados are feeling the pinch, as the city’s annual arts and cultural festival — a monthlong event that spelt rustling of silk saris, sabha gossips, fingerlicking food, and endless hours of music and dance — will, in a first, go digital.
Known as the season of melodies, Margazhi is a confluence of creativity where music maestros, budding artistes, gurus, students and rasikas find a common platform to bring the city alive. But with tedious isolation and social distancing protocols moving all entertainment into our living room, on handheld devices, Margazhi will have to quarantine itself and take the virtual route, it seems.
In August, when The Federation of Sabhas made a formal announcement that they were coming together to play host to the festival on a digital platform to ensure its continuity, many rasikas had one question — how to create an intangible experience via this new route? To address this, The Arts and Culture Resources India, in collaboration with SPI Edge, is curating a series of digital conversations titled Next. The first edition of the series, Next: Margazhi - Reimagining Chennai’s Cultural Season, went live on Saturday.
Tuning into reality
The session opened with a mridangam performance by MadRasna’s Sumesh Narayanan, followed by Yaazhi, a neo-Carnatic band. The tunes of both seemed to seek our surrender in its melodious enchantment, promising us a future more musical and harmonious. It set the mood for us to lend our ears to the panel discussion on how to plan and conduct Chennai’s biggest cultural festival, the Margazhi music season, on a virtual medium.
Facilitated by Akhila Krishnamurthy, founder of Aalaap, the panel comprised Sudha Ragunathan, vocalist; Harish ankar Krishnaswami, secretary of Narada Gana Sabha; and Mahesh Venkateswaran, founder of MadRasana. Margazhi, Harishankar said, is a 100-year-old tradition that has been illumined by the collaborative efforts of various sabhas.
“There are about 15 prominent sabhas — some more than 50 years old, and others more than 100 years old. Never in a lifetime would we have thought about shifting to a digital medium. It may not be possible to completely recreate the experience of relishing sumptuous food at the canteen, networking, or sabha gossips. At least, food is an integral part and we are working on a plan to offer that experience this year as well...it’s yet to be revealed,” he shared.
With 2020 nearing its end, we know that the pandemic has left a staring gap in the physical world, especially for artistes who thrive on human connection and live audiences. No wonder then that artistes are also reinventing themselves by reimagining their artistic sensibilities to stay relevant.
Sudha kept herself engaged with her online concert, Sooda’s Kitchen, where she whipped up some delicacies by rendering some soothing ragas. Her Expressions Espresso, where she had a hearty chat with prominent personalities from various fields, was a huge hit. “I felt a void when I performed an online concert for the first time as there was no audience in front of me. I used this time to improve my technological skills and the audience enjoyed the new areas I was exploring and the content I was offering,” she explained.
Digital fatigue
While technology has intervened and come to the rescue of artistes to reach out to an otherwise inaccessible audience, what seems to worry them is — how much is too much, especially caused by digital fatigue. “Right from the junior to the senior-most artiste, everybody wants to perform but one needs to be wise as to how much one wants to perform in a new medium. I usually perform 15 concerts during the season for a duration of about three hours each.
Now, I would bring that down to two hours. We need to work on new compositions and present ourselves differently,” emphasised Sudha. While individual artistes have to recalibrate to suit the digital audience, for others like Mahesh, his company, MadRasna, has always emphasised on exploring concerts in unconventional spaces with the sole intent of attracting the newage. “We want to understand the perspective and expectation of the audience and artiste, and work towards a common solution that satisfies both. We’ve been conducting polls and surveys to find out more.
There’s so much you can explore with digital mediums,” said a hopeful Mahesh. Whether you’re a newcomer or an established player, the world wide web seems to offer a level playing field with equal possibilities to all. “Digital medium is not a replacement for live concerts but merely a different mode of experience. If we see it as two different options then it’s better for the future. Right now, the priority is to tap on various formats to engage the audience,” concluded Hari. While the digital stage is bigger and the audience wider, this new routine we hope is limited to 2020. Till then, let music heal the world.