Written by Vaishnavi Warrier
And She Spoke is not the regular systematic and structured Bharatanatyam performance one usually sees with exquisite costumes, jewellery, and hairdos. This semi-classical dance-theatre production, conceptualised by renowned classical dancer Vaibhav Arekar and co-directed by Sushant Jadhav, combines elements ranging from Bharatanatyam, Bharata Nrityam, Beethoven’s Moonlight Sonata, Maya Angelou, and Amrita Pritam’s poetry, among others, to narrate a story of women—women at home, women at work, young women, old women—essentially, women in their personal daily lives.
A team comprising dancers from multiple cities across India—Deepika Potdar, Eesha Pinglay, Indu Venu, Keerthana Ravi, Meenakshi Grama, Prachi Saathi, Rama Kukunur, Reshma Shetty, and Shruti Gopal—dressed in regular plain-colored kurtis and salwars, ensures to leave the audience in sadness, sorrow, sickness, and strength.
“When we met in Bangalore for the first time physically, we actually had no clue what we were doing. We had worked on it individually earlier, but now it was this large jigsaw puzzle. We would just look at Vaibhav sir and Sushant sir and ask them, ‘How are we going to do this?’” recalls Prachi Saathi. “Magically, things slowly started to come into place. Vaibhav sir found something that all of us shared in common, where we could align with his understanding of this form,” Saathi said.
Team And She Spoke.
“We worked on it for such a long time with no end goal of a programme. The changes happened in due course not just because of the medium, but also through the fact that we grew as dancers and human beings,” notes Shruti Gopal. The whole process, never envisioned as a proper performance piece initially, started through classes and Zoom meetings with these performers from different parts of the city, where they were encouraged to bring in stories and situations pertaining to women and the struggles they face to be talked about.
Team And She Spoke has been touring all over India—they started with Mumbai and slowly proceeded to Bangalore, Pune, and Delhi. They are also in talks of taking this to other locations in the country, like Kerala, Goa, and Hyderabad. “In the Bombay show, we noticed that we had a huge repeat audience. It is a large ensemble of 10 dancers. Everyone is not available at all times—sometimes when someone is unavailable, somebody else takes their role or changes are made to the story,” said Saathi.
Having already performed in Pune, the new show to be held comprises three additional stories and four new sequences. While the story as a whole will always have common universal elements across their performances in the country, there is always something new to offer. Vaibhav Arekar’s large fan base in Pune plays a significant role in boosting the motivations and encouragement of the ensemble as a whole.
The team talks about the difference between two divisions they have observed in the audience among shows they have been a part of—dancers who have had experience with professional training and the audience who have had no connection with studying the discipline.
“We were just dancing bodies trying to speak out the stories which we could relate to,” observed Swarada Datar.
“Traditional dances express more via the face and body rather than spoken word,” notes Deepika Potdar. Saathi talks about how experimental shows like this open the vision of the practitioners of the classical form and use the concept of Bharatanatyam to communicate radical ideas and concepts like these. Pieces like these contribute to a broader understanding and accessibility of Bharatanatyam among those who typically find it challenging to comprehend.
“There is a lot of internalised emotion and less of speaking the thought out loud in traditional pieces. This came as a challenge for me in this production. I could not understand the tone of my words, even when I was speaking them out loud and clear. Working on this aspect of theatre emerged as an added skill to sharpen,” notes Potdar.
“We were just dancing bodies trying to speak out the stories which we could relate to,” observes Swarada Datar, emphasizing the sense of community and support they found among one another.
And She Spoke will be staged at The Box, Pune, on 26th and 27th June.
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