Spectacular dances in fast-paced show. (Review by Priya Dala)
India is so many things to so many people. To some, it is
the Motherland that they yearn for; to others it is a mystery that can never be
explained, but rather to experience first-hand.
Mystic India, a show
that arrived on our shores on its world tour, from the bastion of show theatre
– Broadway New York, attempted to give you that experience through the medium
of dance.
Throughout the performance, I was reminded of Mark Tully’s
award-winning book No Full Stops in India.
With Mystic India there was not a
full stop in sight. It began with an opening act that seemed ill-chosen as a
crowd teaser, a half-hour solo violin interpretation of popular Western music. That
aside, when the actual show did begin, it never stopped (bar a 20-minute
interval).
The dances were spectacular. The producers clearly had
studied the Bollywood tradition of large group dance formations with a central
lead dancer, surrounded by an agile troupe. In that style, it lent itself well
to certain aspects of the narration, but somehow took something away from
others.
Narration is not used lightly here because the narrator, in
theatrical style, told us at every step of the way that we were being taken on
a journey through India. The journey turned out to be a somewhat narrow one but
given the vastness of Indian dance and music as an art-form, I understood that
there was only that much you could pack into a two-hour show.
Religious references to the Krishna-Leela, which is a dance
of Lord Krishna and his beloved Radha, was treated well, taking you into a
woody forest watching Radha flirting with a Krishna that wafted into and out of
the frame. A historical nod to King Akbar was one of the highlights, and AR
Rahman’s famous Sufi Song delighted many of us.
Of course, there would be no India without the Bollywood
insertion. And this is where some disappointment began to creep in. The dancers
were extremely energetic, and clearly well practiced, but the interpretation of
Bollywood was reduced to a large segment on seductive item numbers. Perhaps a
montage of Bollywood through the ages, with a change in that frenetic pace into
one for which Bollywood is synonymous? The soft, lilting romance that could
have effectively been depicted by two simply-clad dancers, instead of the
onslaught that had one wondering if this is all Bollywood is about. I eagerly
awaited the advertised aerial displays, which seemed absent.
Speaking of pace, it was wonderful in small doses, but after
a while, it became dizzying, and it left one hankering after simplicity. The
costumes were astounding in colour and design. The narrator could have been
clearer in his speech, and the interludes of religion in the way of descriptions
of the Hindu Gods did not blend well into the dances that accompanied them.
Nevertheless, it was bright, loud and frantic. Full stops aside,
a comma or two would not have gone amiss.
Mystic India has moved
on to Johannesburg where it runs at the TeatroMontecasino from April 29 to May 1,
2016. – Priya Dala
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