It was that season again...Dance and music practices filled up our post-work hours. The biggest benefit seemed to be the free workout that entailed. There was one particular dance item we were doing that seemed so harmless and simple, that it almost seemed juvenile attempting it. It was called the 'Kolaata'. A South Indian folk dance, it is particularly famous in my native state Karnataka and some other places like Tamilnadu.
It involved the presence of a bunch of village girls, playing with sticks similar to the Dandiya ones. A lot of 'hitting around' was a part of the dance. The only danger I saw in the dance was of accidentally knocking out someone's front teeth or something. But apart from that, it almost seemed innocuous enough to smoothly sail through with no glitches in the performance. In fact, I firmly believed that blundering it up would have needed an enormous effort. Little did I know how wrong I was.
We were supposed to perform the dance at two consecutive occasions. The first was at the Durga Puja celebrations where we were representing Karnataka in an inter-community dance festival. Because, this was a competition, we should have been a little nervous. But owing to the fact that we were only 6 ladies who had practiced the simple-easy dance a million times, we knew nothing would go wrong.
Packed with confidence, we drove to the venue in two cars. I was driving mine, giving a ride to 2 others, while our choreographer drove her car riding the remaining half of our group with her. I remember beaming as I passed motorists who were glancing with weird expressions at the 3 girls dressed in colorful village sarees tied up above the ankles(which they couldn't see of course), with hands adorned with colorful bangles, long jhumkis dangling from the ears and hair loaded with fake flowers. In short, they could witness what probably looked like 3 village girls who had fled with a stolen vehicle :P. I know for sure that it was the most mismatched attire for the urban woman driving on US roads.
But I felt no embarrassment. I couldn't wait to go and win the competition. Once we reached the venue, nervousness and adrenaline kicked in together. The sounds and sight of jostling crowds, settling down in the rows of seats set up for the audience at a school auditorium was unnerving to say the least. Our confident group chose to have our photographs clicked as a means of relaxation. Although far from soothing, it atleast distracted us from the constant thought of our impending performance. And we also got some nice pictures before we became sweaty, dislodged our jewelry, spoilt our make up (these things were bound to follow our performance).
Having clicked a million pictures and gotten tired, we were left with no option but to take our places in the audience and ride out the extreme anguish of seeing the other performances. The effect of seeing another artist perform is very overwhelming for any artist. Depending on the nature of the artist, it can infuse any feeling ranging from extreme inferiority/superiority complex to sudden stage fright. In my case, looking at the bunch of beautiful girls perform a nice Kerala dance gave me an immense inferiority complex. Despite the fact that our dance was entertaining, I could see that it was no way difficult. It required hardly any footwork, evoked no facial expressions, didn't have any marvelous foot tapping rhythm....In short there was nothing extraordinary in our dance. This was the conclusion I came to after witnessing the Kerala dance.
Before I could digest this, it was our turn. As we reached the dias we realized that there was no comfortable way to enter the stage except climb on to it. With our tightly wrapped sarees, we clumsily climbed on to it and checked a zillion times to verify that our costumes were still secure. The awkwardness of standing ON the stage before the music even started, waiting to enter (technically we had already entered) was terrible. Every second seemed like a year. Just then my teammate whispered from behind "how are we supposed to exit?" Before I could process her question, the music blasted and we entered merrily, with an enthusiasm that translated into "We are better than the Kerala dancers". Dancing our way in, we understood what a tiny stage it was-10 times tinier than the basements we had practiced in. We tried hard not to collide into each other.
30 seconds into the song and BANG- the music stopped. And we stood there sheepishly, 6 ladies flashing 6 foolish smiles. After an entire 15 seconds passed we started looking around at the sound guys when the music abruptly began again and we were caught unaware.
All synchronization went to hell. 2 ladies forgot their steps, one was running a beat ahead and the other running a beat behind. Rhythm was a joke. And we happily laughed to encourage ourselves, not realizing we were the joke.
The disastrous performance came to a close with the ending tune and we eagerly made our way to the exit. Only then did I understand the gravity of my teammate's question - how were we supposed to exit? Because our exit sequence had us disappear backstage as the music kept playing. And there was NO "backstage" here. The entertaining performance just took a leap with 6 ladies leaping off the stage in their fancy sarees and jewelry.
We made a beeline for the nearest door that could take us far from the audience. I couldnt look anyone in the eye and wanted to change into something unrecognizable. I hated to hear "Oh there's the girl from THAT dance".
The Durga Puja performance was decisively proved to be a disaster. But we had another performance waiting for us the next day. We had to perform the same number the next day at the Diwali festival of another local community- The Kannada association- that was solely for people from my native state Karnataka. I knew they would be more welcoming towards their own folk dance and it lifted my spirits.
The 6 of us got together the next day for a pep talk. Our choreographer reminded us the code words she had devised to remind us our dance steps. "Straight line", "Circle", "Rainbow", "Rocket" were just some of the names to remind us of the formations we had rehearsed umpteen times. I knew very well that our first stanza started with a 'Rainbow' and the second with a 'Rocket'. She had us revise them and reminded us that she would prompt us the names on stage.
Our turn was the first this time around. There was no other dance group to pull us down. There was also a backstage and curtains to hide our entry. So we entered with confidence and danced away. The music didnt stop in 30 seconds so that was an added bonus.
Before the first stanza started we were split into 2 straight lines, 3 ladies on each. Our choreographer was on the line opposite mine. Just as everything was going smooth, the ill fated dance disaster struck again. For some reason our choreographer shouted 'Rocket' instead of 'Rainbow' and had her entire line swinging in full speed like a rocket, while the 3 of us who didn't hear her, correctly did the 'Rainbow'. The audience had their share of merriment as 6 grown up ladies made fools of themselves (second day in a row) with 3 of them dancing like a Rocket and the other 3 as Rainbow. Realizing something was amiss, one of the Rocket girls changed to Rainbow and collided head on into another lady. As the choreographer tried to mend things following her tiny oral mistake, the dance fell apart. The entire stanza went by in utter chaos with 6 ladies running around trying to find their spot and look like a dance formation.
As we exited following a sober second stanza, we flopped into chairs and looked around. We couldnt help but laugh at the situation. Not once but twice were we let down. By fate, by the stage, by the sound system AND by ourselves.
My teammate who had questioned the exit sequence the previous day looked at me and asked "What do you think about it?"
I shrugged and looked at her for a long time.
"I think that is one cursed dance" I finally said as we all burst out laughing.
It involved the presence of a bunch of village girls, playing with sticks similar to the Dandiya ones. A lot of 'hitting around' was a part of the dance. The only danger I saw in the dance was of accidentally knocking out someone's front teeth or something. But apart from that, it almost seemed innocuous enough to smoothly sail through with no glitches in the performance. In fact, I firmly believed that blundering it up would have needed an enormous effort. Little did I know how wrong I was.
We were supposed to perform the dance at two consecutive occasions. The first was at the Durga Puja celebrations where we were representing Karnataka in an inter-community dance festival. Because, this was a competition, we should have been a little nervous. But owing to the fact that we were only 6 ladies who had practiced the simple-easy dance a million times, we knew nothing would go wrong.
Packed with confidence, we drove to the venue in two cars. I was driving mine, giving a ride to 2 others, while our choreographer drove her car riding the remaining half of our group with her. I remember beaming as I passed motorists who were glancing with weird expressions at the 3 girls dressed in colorful village sarees tied up above the ankles(which they couldn't see of course), with hands adorned with colorful bangles, long jhumkis dangling from the ears and hair loaded with fake flowers. In short, they could witness what probably looked like 3 village girls who had fled with a stolen vehicle :P. I know for sure that it was the most mismatched attire for the urban woman driving on US roads.
But I felt no embarrassment. I couldn't wait to go and win the competition. Once we reached the venue, nervousness and adrenaline kicked in together. The sounds and sight of jostling crowds, settling down in the rows of seats set up for the audience at a school auditorium was unnerving to say the least. Our confident group chose to have our photographs clicked as a means of relaxation. Although far from soothing, it atleast distracted us from the constant thought of our impending performance. And we also got some nice pictures before we became sweaty, dislodged our jewelry, spoilt our make up (these things were bound to follow our performance).
Before I could digest this, it was our turn. As we reached the dias we realized that there was no comfortable way to enter the stage except climb on to it. With our tightly wrapped sarees, we clumsily climbed on to it and checked a zillion times to verify that our costumes were still secure. The awkwardness of standing ON the stage before the music even started, waiting to enter (technically we had already entered) was terrible. Every second seemed like a year. Just then my teammate whispered from behind "how are we supposed to exit?" Before I could process her question, the music blasted and we entered merrily, with an enthusiasm that translated into "We are better than the Kerala dancers". Dancing our way in, we understood what a tiny stage it was-10 times tinier than the basements we had practiced in. We tried hard not to collide into each other.
30 seconds into the song and BANG- the music stopped. And we stood there sheepishly, 6 ladies flashing 6 foolish smiles. After an entire 15 seconds passed we started looking around at the sound guys when the music abruptly began again and we were caught unaware.
All synchronization went to hell. 2 ladies forgot their steps, one was running a beat ahead and the other running a beat behind. Rhythm was a joke. And we happily laughed to encourage ourselves, not realizing we were the joke.
The disastrous performance came to a close with the ending tune and we eagerly made our way to the exit. Only then did I understand the gravity of my teammate's question - how were we supposed to exit? Because our exit sequence had us disappear backstage as the music kept playing. And there was NO "backstage" here. The entertaining performance just took a leap with 6 ladies leaping off the stage in their fancy sarees and jewelry.
We made a beeline for the nearest door that could take us far from the audience. I couldnt look anyone in the eye and wanted to change into something unrecognizable. I hated to hear "Oh there's the girl from THAT dance".
The Durga Puja performance was decisively proved to be a disaster. But we had another performance waiting for us the next day. We had to perform the same number the next day at the Diwali festival of another local community- The Kannada association- that was solely for people from my native state Karnataka. I knew they would be more welcoming towards their own folk dance and it lifted my spirits.
The 6 of us got together the next day for a pep talk. Our choreographer reminded us the code words she had devised to remind us our dance steps. "Straight line", "Circle", "Rainbow", "Rocket" were just some of the names to remind us of the formations we had rehearsed umpteen times. I knew very well that our first stanza started with a 'Rainbow' and the second with a 'Rocket'. She had us revise them and reminded us that she would prompt us the names on stage.
Our turn was the first this time around. There was no other dance group to pull us down. There was also a backstage and curtains to hide our entry. So we entered with confidence and danced away. The music didnt stop in 30 seconds so that was an added bonus.
Before the first stanza started we were split into 2 straight lines, 3 ladies on each. Our choreographer was on the line opposite mine. Just as everything was going smooth, the ill fated dance disaster struck again. For some reason our choreographer shouted 'Rocket' instead of 'Rainbow' and had her entire line swinging in full speed like a rocket, while the 3 of us who didn't hear her, correctly did the 'Rainbow'. The audience had their share of merriment as 6 grown up ladies made fools of themselves (second day in a row) with 3 of them dancing like a Rocket and the other 3 as Rainbow. Realizing something was amiss, one of the Rocket girls changed to Rainbow and collided head on into another lady. As the choreographer tried to mend things following her tiny oral mistake, the dance fell apart. The entire stanza went by in utter chaos with 6 ladies running around trying to find their spot and look like a dance formation.
As we exited following a sober second stanza, we flopped into chairs and looked around. We couldnt help but laugh at the situation. Not once but twice were we let down. By fate, by the stage, by the sound system AND by ourselves.
My teammate who had questioned the exit sequence the previous day looked at me and asked "What do you think about it?"
I shrugged and looked at her for a long time.
"I think that is one cursed dance" I finally said as we all burst out laughing.
There is lot to comment on this.. but will share my exp as i call u :)
ReplyDeleteHaha....cant wait to talk then!! :D
ReplyDeleteVery nicely narrated.
ReplyDeleteleave us with the feedback from those entertained audience ! :P
No way!! That is top secret!! :P
ReplyDelete