With seven years of broad-based experience in journalism with extensive exposure to article editing and writing for various media houses, it is Jagyaseni Chatterjee’s aim to use dance as a medium of social change. With this goal in view, she is trying to acquire proficiency in Bharatanatyam as a performer and as a teacher with a thorough theoretical knowledge from Dr Lakshmi Ramaswamy in her 26-year-old institute, Sri Mudhraalaya, Chennai.
She is a part of TIDE – The Indian Dance Experience YouTube Channel as its manager since 2019 and curates events and seminars. Armed with a Master of Arts degree from the University of Madras, she is an aspiring PhD student at Kanchi University. For fulfilling her objective, she has done a course in Storytelling for Social Change from the University of Michigan.
Devi- The Calling was Jagyaseni’s first such work, conceived and performed as a digital presentation upon invitation from Sangit Kalamandir on the occasion of Mahalaya. Jagyaseni had to get it ready within a span of 10 days and that too during the pandemic. The work brought together, Bharatanatyam, theatre, and her keen interest to use dance as a medium for social change. Interestingly, the background music and the second track on Nature has been made by her at home using digital music resources.
The story of Devi – The Calling started with Roshni painting a picture of Durga because her mother had promised her that if the picture comes out really well, they could organise a Durga Puja at home. But Padma, a staunch believer of idol worship mocks Roshni and takes her to Mahesh Babu, the idol maker. Mahesh Babu and Padma discuss the greatness of the Goddess (through Nava Durga, Mahisasura Mardini and Deekshitar’s Amritavarshini) and hail her deeds when Vidya (Roshni’s mother) walks in.
Can someone worship a painting? Padma mocks Vidya. But Vidya’s compelling monologue enthrals Padma, Mahesh Babu and the audience.
Crisp and subtle dialogues interspersed with Bharatanatyam did not give the audience a breather to take their attention away from the presentation. The music was taken from varied resources. Some of it was taken from Sri Mudhraalaya. Compositions for Anjali, Nava Durga, Amritavarshini a Deekshitar Kriti were from the collection of Sri Mudhraalaya. Mahisasura Mardini was sung by T S Ranganathan, the track of which was taken from Giri Trading Agency. Thillana composition in Hamsanandi Ragam was an excerpt from Padmashree Chitra Visweswaran’s choreography. Nature track music was arranged by Jagyaseni Chatterjee herself.
Dancers: Jagyaseni Chatterjee (Vidya), Dhivya Srilakshmi (Padma), Lalitha Narasimhan (Maheshbabu the idol maker) and V Roshni (Roshni) were all from Sri Mudhralaya’s repertory group. Voice over of the different characters were by Sandeep Raghavan (Mahesh Babu), Jagyaseni Chatterjee (Vidya and Roshni), Dhivya Srilakshmi (Padma).
Dancers were all accomplished Bharatanatyam performers. Though the production as a whole has the scope to polish themselves, it came at an opportune time- during the autumn season, when Devi Durga is invoked in the length and breadth of India and in a big way in Bengal.
This digital performance set the tone and bhava of the season and this writer expects that this will become a trendsetter of the future.
