KOCHI: You may not be the connoisseur or anything classical, but Baale will leave you spellbound. A coinage of six dance forms, beautifully backed by soulful music and eloquent lyrics, it floors you for its sheer aesthetics. “Baale means belle, and it’s an ode to the magic called woman,” says Shruthi Namboodiri, director and lyricist.
The audio-visual narrative captures the essence and varied dimensions of womanhood through six exponents - Meenakshi Sreenivasan (bharatanatyam), Nandita Prabhu (mohiniyattam), Kapila Venu (koodiyattam), Haripriya (kathakali), Arushi Mudgal (odissi) and Rima Kallingal (contemporary dance).
“We made the music first and it was a a tune that called for some rich imagery. Even when I penned the lines, I could visualise women dancing. Since it was conceived as an anthem for womanhood, we felt dance will be the best medium to express it,” she says. The music and rendition is by Sudeep Palanad, who is aptly accompanied by Sumesh Parameswar on guitar, Bhavya Lakshmi on violin and Raghu Nandan on flute.
Shruthi says instead of developing a concrete storyline they left it for the artists to interpret. “All six use different techniques based on the dance forms they represent. Kathakali and koodiyattam are more theatrical genres and they focus more on expressions than movements,” she says. The lines were penned with a third person perspective, as someone, mostly a mother, seeing her young daughter. “While some dancers chose to be the mother, some others expressed it in first person, as the young girl herself.”
The musical, that was released on February 8, features some renowned names in classical circuit. Shruthi says they were keen on roping in known artists, icons of dance forms they represent. “We wanted the best dancers, faces we instantly associate with various dance forms. Bharatanatyam, mohiniyattom, kathakali and and koodiyattam are very popular in South and we had odissi to represent the North. Then contemporary dance is a form that is now being celebrated across the globe.”
Baale is also an attempt to break the conventional template in more ways than one. “Instead of saying the story through one dance form and sticking to a single artist, we tried a fresh format. Even the music is a fusion, blending two scales of Indian classical music with Spanish guitar,” she adds. Baale also has a singer’s version, where six vocalists have come together for a single song. “Sujatha Mohan, Kalyani Menon, Ranjini-Gayathri , Deepa Palanad, Shreya Jayadeep - they all represent different types of music and converging their styles for a single track was an immense challenge,” she adds. The screening of Baale, along with the launch of its singer’s and instrumental versions, will be held today (Feb 18) at Gallery OED, Mattancherry.