bangalore

Love Letters

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Byomkesh Bakshi – the detective’s character of a TV serial,  I liked a lot, whom I knew quite later as Rajit Kapoor.  Today we four friends went to see his live performance of Love Letters at Rangashankara. This play written by A R Gurney had been nominated for Pulitzer Prize.

This play has been said to be performed more than 250 times. The dual character drama is based on the letters sent by each other over the span of 50 years. The act of “Andrew Makepiece Ladd III” performed by Rajit Kapoor bought the life in the character. And on the other side the role of “Melissa Gardner” was well justified by Shernaz Patel.

The narrative letters orated by both of them from the two side of stages over their changing years/ scenes was taking audience though the different times and moods of two persons sharing their almost all kind of feelings. Both the actors , in the roles of school students to aged people’s role – they seemed completely immersed into.  A flawless performance indeed !  And at the end (when like all love stories) the drama was sad Andy(Andrew) was near to the grave of Melissa – Rajit was crying. And  around 3 hours immersed in the role of Andy at the time of the final stage appearance – his eyes were still wet.

Adding to wetness of his eyes – was his happiness seeing the standing ovation of  houseful Audience. He shared a really good chemistry with Shernaz and I guess they just perfected the characters of ‘Andy and Melissa” without memorizing the script word by word.

It was my first live classical theater experience and was a really satisfying experience.  Wish to see more such live performances of great actors in coming days..

( Photo credits: The Hindu , The Tribune )

Have Feet – Will Dance

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Have Feet – Will Dance ™ – The motto of SDIPA.

For the uninitiated – SDIPA stands for Shiamak Davar’s Institute for the Performing Arts.

I saw the poster of SDIPA classes in Jayanagar 4th block last year itself, but somehow the I was late to call the enrollment office, but this time I did not missed it and got the seat.

Learning dance was needed from childhood itself. It was a forceful push by Ma, to a dancing group in the durga-puja became a obsession later. Yeah, I do love to dance  on my feet to my own tunes, when ever I do get a chance.  But I needed a professional touch and discipline to it.  And in the month of January I joined it at SDIPA in Winter funk to learn Jazz. 

After training of 12 classes, our adult’s beginner’s group made the final presentation at St. John’s Auditorium on the rocking song of Jab We Met – Mauza hi Mauza. And the synchronized entry and exit towards audience (to make them dance) was really good. The song required a lot of energy and hopefully the group did its best. The quite good ( pretty too :p )  instructor made the tough steps easy and learning dance was really a fun for the beginners like us.  Her smile made the whole batch learn smile a lot.  

About 1,500 students were present in the presentation day from all Bangalore centers !  Not caring for food or time, many of them seemed practicing slowly in small groups, still before the presentation! What makes such a large number of people dance ?  One may be surprised to know the student’s age group. Its ranges from 4 to 60+.

Shiamak must had some very clear dreams and willingness to live a life , that he thought to share, through the performing art forms – dance . 

Thanks to Shiamak, whose heart speaks –

“I am an eagle that soars over southern seas,
I am a reason for people, who want to believe,
‘I am’, ‘I am not’, ‘I should be’, ‘I could be’,
In a world of ‘I’, I’m a person with just one belief:
Love my priceless possession
& God my savior in need.”

Hope to join the next level batches in summer funk.