Main Events /Past History
Adishakti was created in 1981 as a theatre company in Mumbai. Its main activity then was to create performances, which were already scripted. Some of these performances were Sophocles' Oedipus , (1982) Stoppard's Rosencrantz and Guildenstern are Dead , (1983 ) Euripedes' Trojan Women (1984).


Naseerudin Shah in Odeipus
Excellent performances highlight “Oedipus” The composition and body-lines in the intimate scene between Jocasta and Oedipus displayed the visual sensitivity of the director. The use of eyes was a very good directorial touch that belonged exclusively to Veenapani Chawla.---Mid Day 26-8-1981.

 
   
Strangely while supposedly revolutionary theatre is becoming decadent, this staging of a Greek tragedy is one of the most progressive endeavors in recent memory. ---it indicates one way out for the state of the art, which seems to have reached stalemate. Veenapani Chawla's version at the Prithvi is a truly modern rending of a classic in a form that restores it to life while rooting it in a vital artistic context. ---------.The Sunday Observer 10-5-1984.
 

Adishakti's production of Tom Stoppards Rosencrantz and Guilderstern are Dead at the Prithvi is a triumph. ----------------The Sunday Observer Mumbai 5-6-1983.
 
From 1985 onwards Adishakti started creating its own texts. Thus A Greater Dawn in 1992, Impressions of Bhima 1994, Khandava Prastha 1996, Brhannala 1998, Ganapati 2000.

 
 

If Veenapani Chawla can take a Greater Dawn, hailed as a landmark theatre by critics, to other Indian cities, it could well become a major national theatrical event.
---------The Pioneer Delhi 16-3-1992.

   

The humor was superbly paced – stealing in craftily, then going over the top in improvisatory abandon before retuning to the solemnity of the opening. The absence of a prefatory note on the production helped. Much of Bhima's sparkle derived from the fact of an unprepared audience having to discover its way by itself. -------- The Pioneer Delhi 25-4-1996
 
   

Usha Nangiyar
in Khandava Prasta -1998
 

Brhannala written, choreographed and directed by Chawla and performed by Vinay Kumar, -- was the most total work of theatre l have yet to witness. I use total because I can't come up with a better word to describe the creators' perfect blend of spoken language, physical body, music and lights------The Dance Inside 3-January 2003
 
Undoubtedly Veenapani Chawla's Ganapati is a radical breakthrough in the history of modern Indian theatre. ----------Editorial NFSC Journal 4-7-2001
 

Over the years certain factors contributed to the nature of Adishakti's performance activity. Among these were:

  • Cinema as the art form of the times was seen to be invalidating theatre. Adishakti wanted to reinstate theatre as an art form and widen its scope.
  • The cultural imperatives of postcolonial India and the consequent need for a new aesthetic for contemporary times.
  • Globalization and the threat of uniformity: the need therefore to guard specificity of cultural expression while at the same time looking for similarity in varied cultural practices so as to mitigate the threat of conflict between “ difference”.
 
In 1983 Adishakti started to include research as a part of its activities. This emerged out of it s need to create a new language for contemporary performance, which would reflect a new aesthetic. The initial areas of such research were the traditional performance forms of India. Adishakti's first such engagement was with Mayurbhanj Chhau, a dance based on martial arts from Orissa. From this interaction evolved an independent vocabulary for expression in the body, which was used in the Adishakti production of The Trojan Women, 1984.


  Subrato Patnaik in
Mayur Bhanj Chhau

Subsequently in 1987 Adishakti felt the need to evolve a sound style for vocal expre ss ion and therefore engaged with Patsy Rodenburg of the RSC in England. On the heel s of this came an interaction with the north Indian music form of Dhrupad, of the vocal style of Koodiyattam theatre, of Samavedic chanting (said to be the origin of music in India) the breath practices of Hatha yoga--- pranayama and the martial art of Kerala, Kalaripayattu, which also has breath practices associated with it. The result of all this work was revealed through Adishakti's A Greater Dawn, 1992
Veenapani at a Kalari in Chavakkad, Kerala  

In 1989 Adishakti was registered as a Charitable Trust. In 1993 it shifted base to Pondicherry. And it was from this point onward that Adishakti's concerns became larger. It was no longer preoccupied merely with the development of its own theatrical language and of revitalizing contemporary theatre but also in offering something to the traditional artist; its partner in dialogue. In fact Adishakti's relationship with traditional form from this time onwards was a departure from the existing practice of treating such forms as hermetically sealed, or only as the object of preservation and restoration. Adishakti started acting on the premise, that past disciplines need to be deliberately displaced from their own context in order to throw up a range of new knowledges within them, not formerly known or apprehended.

Indeed it regarded the traditional forms as constitutively incomplete , and attributed, in part, some of their fading appeal, within their own spectator-communities, not so much to the corruption (through urbanization etc) of audience taste, but rather to the historical attrition or paralysis of the forms themselves. Within this understanding, Adishakti's position was that the contemporary performer is privileged as a critic whose task it is to reinterpret and, as it were, fill in the blanks within specific traditional forms. So, in its encounter with the traditional artist, Adishakti has endeavored, of course, to clarify its own formal and imaginative directions, but also, and equally, to stimulate the traditional artist to discover old forms anew. The encounter, thus, is premised upon a powerful recognition of mutual worth and capability.

Some examples of this :

By way of Adishakti's exchanges with the Kalaripayattu guru Ramesh Marikhar of the Hinusthan Kalari Sangham, Calicut, it has been equipped to adapt the vocabulary of the traditional martial arts into its performance practices. But this exchange has also helped the guru himself to discover the unique relation of breath to body dynamics in the form. While the guru was always unconsciously aware of this relation, Adishakti's investigations helped him to articulate and systematize this occluded self-knowledge, contributing enormously to the performance quality of Kalaripayattu. More recently Adishakti's focus on the structures and stances of Kalaripayattu and the relationship of these to the generation of emotion has led the Kalaripayattu master to re-look at the legendary connection between Kalaripayattu and Tantra { Tantra is a spiritual practice}; the relationship of the psychological centers in the body to its centers of energy.

 


 
Similar results ensued from a dialogue with Koodiyattam performer Usha Nangiar, in 1997. (Koodiyattam is a traditional Sanskrit theatre performance from Kerala.) Once again, while enormously beneficial to Adishakti in up-scaling its skill-base, the process helped Usha to draw Koodiyattam training exercises-----such as the use of breath to generate emotion-----into the space and scope of her formal performance itself. Other innovations followed. For example, drawing on Adishakti's use of an unwritten text during performance, Usha was able to reinterpret the ‘ vichinta ' or ‘thoughtful mood' emphasized in the Koodiyattam Attaprakaram to mean the process of active inner thought throughout performance. Usha's performances are already much more accessible and ‘fresh' for community audiences.
Usha Nangiyar  

 
In 1999, Adishakti began an interaction with Kodiyattam musician and mizhavu (a traditional drum) player, Hariharan, which resulted in the production, Ganapathi , notable for its use of music as text in performance. For Hariharan it led to a greater awareness of the interconnection between the actor's use of breath for the generation of emotion and the patterns of rhythm, which underlie this and which, are reinforced by the percussionist.

  V.K.K.Hariharan
   

Adishakti's interaction with the tradition has been not only in the realm of performance. From 2000 Adishakti extended its research activity into disciplines such as old construction technologies, traditional medicine and instrument building. It was the pragmatic need of the hour { compulsions, which emerged from the development of the campus), which compelled it to undertake these investigations and they merely reinforced its growing awareness that knowledge creation is a crucial exercise for new creativity .
 
Adishakti Campus

1994 2000 Adishakti Guest House
Guest House Interior Adishakti Theatre -Sir Ratan Tata Koothu Kovil Theatre Interior
 

Although over the years Adishakti has focused more on what we might call “vertical” connections, viz.; those linking different historical times (e.g.; traditional-contemporary), in the hope of creating a new aesthetic of hybridity and a new language of expression for the aesthetic; for sometime now it has also tried to create “horizontal” connections, viz. those, which are not chronologically divided. So, for instance, there has been an attempt to create at Adishakti the opportunity for new and imaginative exchanges with other disciplines. For instance those between: physics and contemporary performance-- the results of which were woven into Brhannalla ; between architecture and performance in Ganapati ; between prosody and performance in the Hare and the Tortoise . Indeed the latter work with experts from Sanskrit prosody{ Chhanda Shastra} is going in multiple directions. On the one hand Adishakti and its partners in this exploration-- the Tapattam artists {Dalit percussionists from Tamil Nadu} are being fed by inputs from the Chhanda Shastra to create words and texts on percussion instruments. On the other Adishakti is being exposed to the concept of the “breath pause”{as distinct from the grammatical pause} in text. Sanskrit prosody marks the breath pause in text to facilitate emotional expression.

Within this category of the “horizontal connections” Adishakti is currently involved in a collaboration with film maker Soudhamini towards the creation of a new creative endeavor--- Brhannala the Film .

Adishakti's dialogues with ‘difference' are not only restricted to different times { tradition} and different genres but also include different spaces. Thus there has been a dialogue between the martial arts of Kerala and that of Orissa { Mayurbhnaj Chhau} at the Adishakti site since 2000. The idea behind these dialogues has been to touch upon the similarities in the practices and allow the differences to stimulate new creativity. Another such dialogue was between Thumari from North India and Kathakkali from South India in 2002. Both forms use the principle of repetition in the text of the music as a means for exploring many shades of emotion, but the aesthetic is different.

In 2003 –2004 Adishakti had its largest inter cultural dialogue to date. It was between its contemporary performers, Koodiyattam performer Usha Nangiar from Kerala, Noh performer Wakita Haruko from Japan and Dr. Rajeshwari Pandey, Professor of Japanese Studies at Latrobe University, Australia. The interaction aimed to investigate the manner in which each of the partners in the dialogue employed breath in performance . The premise on which the workshop/symposium was based was that both Noh and Koodiyattam are the only two known traditional forms, which are similar in the manner in which breath is fundamental to their practice. Therefore it was believed to be significant for the two forms to exchange notes on this similarity and to define the difference in the manner in which breath is used resulting in the difference in the aesthetics of the two forms.

 

Winter Workshop 2003-2004

A Dialogue Between Koodiyattam, Noh and Contemporary Performance

 

Cultural Psychologist Ashish Nandi Academic and Noh Performer Wakita Haruko Workshop Participants
     
Hilary McPhee  Vice-Chancellor's Fellow- University of Melbourne Koodiyattam Performer Usha Nangiyar  Dr. R.Pandey Reader of Japanese Studies, La Trobe University Australia
     
   
Workshop Participants