In my last column a few weeks ago, I bitched and moaned, with some jealousy, about the shared language of musicians and how easily they can “jam”. It was almost poetic justice that soon after, I found myself in a room with eight musicians who effortlessly picked up tunes from each other, and ensured that my scab that was already itching was constantly scratched.
The project had all the makings of my own personal horror novel. A remote arts village. Gurgaon. The fog. The cold. Lots of instruments. And very talented musicians.
The British Council-backed project is a collaboration between folk music bands — The Raghu Dixit Project from Bengaluru, and Bellowhead from the UK. Along with choreographer Gauri Tripathi, directorial assistants Arghya Lahiri and I, and lead director Jude Kelly, we were all assembled to create a “narrative concert”.
This was Phase One of a project that will eventually be staged in April at the South Bank Centre before a tour to India in 2013. We had no real starting point, other than the plot of Transposed Heads, which seems to be a recurring theme in the world of the arts these days. Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana was recently staged in Mumbai, and it is also being rumoured that Julie Taymor is making a film on the same plot.
For this project, however, the music was the real starting point of everything. Unlike regular underscoring assignments, this “narrative concert” will eventually be based on the music. And I and my fellow theatrewallahs found ourselves relegated to the unfamiliar position of following the sounds from the instruments, rather than providing a frame in which they are supposed to operate.
Collaboration is never about simply bringing all the elements together. It is often about taking the lead and relinquishing it in turn. Successful collaborations demand that you work outside your comfort zone, and therefore create a whole that is greater than the sum of its parts.
There is something to be said for the talent on hand. Eight musicians, each armed with a different instrument, and different sensibilities, managed to work 10-hour shifts and create an entire narrative structure for the piece in four short days.
Each song created was influenced by a different stimulus — sometimes the trumpet, sometimes saxophone, sometimes the electric guitar, sometimes kathak bols, sometimes words, sometimes a vocal sound.
Most exciting was that the music was a new sound, unlike anything that either band had ever created. The two folk band explored blues, rock, classical and everything in between. It was almost like the bands took the concept of “transposing heads” to heart, and by Day Two, Band A was developing melodies that you’d normally expect from Band B and vice versa. I suddenly became the Padmini/Sita figure, loving both bands equally. My envy for musicians was replaced with what can best be described as “groupie-ism”.
My real discovery through the process was that storytelling is not only a prerogative of speech. Music tells a story. Tugging at heartstrings. This concert is going to be about
the music telling the emotional story. Phase Two is about putting words to
the music. Add in Tripathi’s choreography and Kelly’s macrocosmic eye and it promises to be a visual, audio and emotional feast.
But collaborations aren’t only about the final product. Being part of a process and witnessing the birth of something new is often reward enough.