My experience of choreography of Radhakumar's Atoppa Sansar Amada
- Part 2 -

Budha Chingtham *

Commisioner IPR at Premier Show 'Atopa Shangsar Amada' at Chandrakirti Auditorium (MCA) on December 3 2017 :: Pix - DIPR

To stage such an intricate text compels me to think, rethink and to ponder. In the end, I got a solution. That is I needed to conduct a systematic investigation of the hidden signs and symbols of the text. At the same time, I was convinced that the short story was beyond the 'cause and effect' kind of story.

That is why I looked up to major current theoriere and decided to apply 'Semiotics' in analysing and retelling the text. The reason is that 'Semiotics' is the study of signs and an attempt to define how audiences make meaning of the performance auditory and visual details. Form this arise the need to employ digital multi-media in this contemporary performance.

That is why to portray the multi-layered world of the write we needed to create an infinite space that is beyond the space of the stage. And that could be done only through the help of multi-media. We needed to join that infinite space with the stage and convince the audience with the multi-narrative. For this, we needed multi-media and sound equipments.

In the meanwhile, problems came up on understanding how to create a medium with our team through multi -media taking in view the prevailing equipment and technical skills available.

This time, it has been said that the choreographic work of Atoppa Sansar Amada is able to win the hearts of the audience and that too as a revolution in new theatre art. The definition of a contemporary performance ,in short, is that it is a hybrid that includes all.

It is a performance art that is constituted by dance, mime, movement, digital video art, text, music which many artists come across in their tryst with Experimental Theatre. It is an independent theatre form. However, it is mostly dominated by contemporary movement, dance and multi-media.

Here, what are worth mentioning are the challenges that I faced in the process of creative development of my choreography and dramatisation and also the overtone symbolism of the writer. The other challenges are training the novice actors, applying multi-media, understanding, and music indicative of this medium, light, costume and innovative sound.

But what is the most difficult challenge to me is to decode the symbols and to come up with choreographic moving patterns that transform the symbol. At the same time, I had to make sure that the physical expression aptly represents the inner emotion.

In my experience in theatre, I have come across different works of choreography. In that, what I find moderately in their works is that the dramatic structure and arrangement of movement have high range of invention. In my opinion, may be, as my background is from theatre, choreography is an intense and intuitive process.

That is why, during the training of the artist for the play, we do the improvisation discreetly and plan the movement accordingly. There are rush, unrest and chaos in the overall tone of the story and to present that in choreography, we need to come up with distorted and irregular movements.

To match the vision of the writer, the choreographer needs to become a space architect where he can aptly uses the tools of multi-media and also multi-media scripting. This led to the addition of another fictional space to the stage. That is why, one should be able to handle multi-media to bridge the space between the two- one on the stage and the other on the screen and this has been proved by many directors, choreographers and playwrights. That means one has to know this from the time of writing, to finding the location and then to direct that vision.

Here, I would like to mention that with the arrival of digital technology in today's theatre and its use, certain queries are raised regarding the relation between theatre performance and new media.

We started working for the play with the sole aim of making good play. However, I had already warned my artists that the play is physically tasking. We had been struggling on the play since August. Sincerity and hard work were the driving force in the long process of preparation for the subtle body movements. Most importantly, because of our production style, we had to be very cautious in the selection of artists.

We started giving training to dancers who are already professional. However, some of them gave up because of rigorous training sessions. That was why we kept switching the seven 'Hellois'. Those who quit might not have taken this art form seriously. They complained that the movements were too much for them.

Luckily, some of those who remained continued their training with unrelenting dedication. Some of them were performing for the first time. They were hardworking as well as sincere. They practice with full dedication and attention. I would no doubt like to give credit for the success of our play to these amazing artists too. They are really very serious in their work. In fact, all the members of the team starting from the directors leave no stone unturned for the play.

In the four month long training period, the artists who struggled whole heartedly for the play are W. Sonia, Hekrujam Okebala, Lanleima, Thoi, Bedavati, Nganthoi and Yaifabi (the seven 'Hellois'). The male artists are Prasanta Moirangthem, Ronald Thongam, H. Darabari, Romeschandra Ashom, Kishan Moirangthem and L. Barshyam.

The reason for the need of more dedication and hard work on the side of the performance for the performance is that the play is more non-verbal involving athletic body movements than verbal as there is less dialogue. Most of the time, my attention was on improvising the movements according to the symbol that I wanted to convey. In that attempt, the experienced artists- Prasanta, Darabari and Sonia were in fact very helpful. Juma Khan, the director of the play took responsibility for all these.

The major problem that we faced was the lack of skill for handling multi-media which we used to enhance the thematic digital display to strengthen the play. There were not enough hands for this. For bringing the performance to the public we slept little, we didn't eat properly and again we sometimes argue. There was not enough time for rehearsal as well as the equipments were too costly.

At same time, we could not miss a single second of arrangement as it would affect the co-ordination between the multi-media operator and the live performance of the artists. Both of them needed to have an understanding. We had also trained the artists how to enact in case of failure of the application of multi-media. The reason being as a dramatist we have to prepare ourselves in all aspects. However, luck seemed to favour us as no untoward incidents occurred that day.

Music and light are also indispensible parts of the play. We faced lots of problem during rehearsals as we could avail the music and light for the rehearsals only for very limited days. In a short time, we were able to get Laishram Ibotombi, renowned light designer and N. Tiken and Jhillatombi, prominent music director and hence the quality of the play was enhanced. Romola Yensembam, costume designer and Sangeeta, make-up artist also contributed in creating a strong stage visual.

In the conclusion, it can be said that as a dramatist and choreographer I can say that this theatre style is welcomed and it will no doubt carve a niche in the history of Manipuri theatre.

Concluded...