Through Mischief Dance, staged at G.D. Birla Sabhagar recently as part of The Story Tellers series presented by the Odissi Vision and Movement Centre, the choreographer, Sharmila Biswas, playfully subverted the notion that classical dance must be grave. The performance demonstrates that an evening of classical dance can be intellectually rigorous yet delightfully irreverent, spontaneously eliciting smiles and the occasional guffaw.
The programme opened with the buoyant and athletic Avartan-Vivartan, framed as a playground match. Driven by intricate rhythmic patterns, the piece crackles with the energy and the impishness of street sport. Moments of mischief and feints engage one from the beginning. The mercurial Ayona Bhaduri brings to Satyabhama in Leela-kalaha the volatility of a passionate lover, the sarcasm of a jealous wife, the angst of an enraged woman against patriarchy and the surrender of a devoted worshipper. She moves through these shifting registers with subtle understanding and a breezy grace. Her changing moods as she negotiates with the flighty Krishna are exquisitely mirrored in the sumptuous musical score brought alive by the eloquent voices of Dipannita Acharya and Anubha Fatehpuria. The classical stage rarely witnesses musical experimentation of such audacity. The lovers’ tiff in Leela-kalaha becomes a layered meditation on desire, possessiveness, vulnerability, and devotion, infused with wit and comicality.
Delightful and animated, A Divine Deception recounts Radha’s confession to her sakhi about how Krishna had slipped into her chambers disguised as a female beautician and performed all the intimate rituals of adornment on her. The neat articulation and the astonishing aesthetic of the work, executed compellingly by Raaginni Hindocha and Dipjoy Sarkar, made it wickedly amusing.
The evening concluded with the explosive Murchhana Vadya, a work that culls out the astounding range of mridangam players. Their raw energy, rhythmic variations, and exuberant physicality are transformed into a dance of thrilling athleticism. Saheb Sanyal’s light design and the robust dancing of Koushik Das, Biswajit Mondal, Priya Manna and Sayantani Roy also contribute to elevating Mischief Dance into a truly special artistic intervention.