Why we went to Chennai

Dinner with Patrick

In September I responded to a LinkedIn message from a former Fulbrighter, Patrick Suzeau, a choreographer who was spending his sabbatical in Malaysia. Over the next few months Doug, Patrick and I would meet at performances in KL and hang out together - not so much because we were Americans, but because we were among the few audience members over the age of 35!

Patrick, trained in ballet now concentrates on Indian dance, introduced us to Indian dance. He suggested that we go to the Temple of Fine Arts for Shankar Kandasamy's dance dedicated to Lord Hanuman, the monkey god. It was an amazing performance.(Here is a clip of Shankar dancing a piece dedicated to Shiva.)  Patrick often mentioned his plan to go to a dance festival in Chennai in December. Doug checked Asia airfares to Chennai, found they were were low, so we decided "why not." We book out flight, made reservations at the New Woodlands Hotel, and planned to meet Patrick in Chennai.

The hotel is walking distance from the Music Academy. Performances started at 9:15 a.m. and ended at 9:30 p.m. We just walked in a found a seat. We stayed to the end of the 1.5 hour performance, although dropping in and leaving was not uncommon. I enjoyed watching the audience, many of whom drummed along with the musicians or made the iconic hand motions. Doug noticed the links to jazz.

The performers are lead by one singer.  He then appears to hold musical dialogs with the audience and with other members of the group.  (Liz disagrees, as she did not feel a dialog existed between the performers and herself.  I think she was spending too much time observing the audience.) In turn, each member of the group takes the lead and the dialog continues moving from musician to musician.  To this untrained musical observer this seems similar to how jazz ensembles, and modern rock bands perform.  I wonder if the Asian Indian diaspora from the 19th century had an influence on the development of jazz.  I know that Indian music had a profound influence on the second half of the 20th century on rock music.

Patrick was attending a seminar "Mad and Divine Women." Again we decided why not. The seminar was on India's "beloved saint poets." A line in the program asked "why is it when men express such feelings [passionately craving the divine] they are called 'realized' and women are called 'mad'? Doug and I knew too little about mystical poets and Indian gods and their stories to get much more out of the presentations. We went to several evening performances (USD2). We learned that we have a limited capacity for long solo performances. Patrick pointed out that the length was because the pieces were being presented as devotional pieces. Too much repetition for our taste - but at the cost and the ability to leave, we can't complain.

We were told that the conference would be on you-tube. A few addresses have been posted, but no dances. We found you-tube clips of performers that we enjoyed: Malavika Sarukkair, Aditi Mangaldas, and Mythili Prakash.

 

One afternoon we went to a theater near the Music Academy to see another dance. On Christmas night Patrick went to a performance in another part of the city. The newspaper reported other dance and music performances. Our conclusion - Chennai  even without Patrick's suggestions one can find treats for their eyes and ears through the city.