The ancient Trigart kingdom which included present day Kangra has references even in the Mahabharata, and the 12th century Rajtarangini by Kalhana. Remnants of the tradition of art they patronized have filtered down to recent times in the world famous Kangra miniature paintings. A series referred to as the Ragamala paintings, as they depicted Ragas visually were lauded at the recently held Trigart Festival in Dharamshala, 1-4th Nov. The 4 day festival presented 5 Ragas from the Ragamala paintings, in various ways – through dance (Kathak Delhi based ,Mahua Shankar, and Bharatanatyam, Chennai based Jai Quehaeni), thumri and folk music, by internationally acclaimed Malini Awasthi, khayal by Shuheb Hassan, and instruments (sitar Fateh Ali Khan sarangi Ustad Murad Ali Khan, flute Pt Ronu Mazumdar). Malini Awasthi’s flight got cancelled and she drove through the night to make it to the concert as “Its important to take our great classical tradition into the interiors as well”. Ronu Mazumdar sadly could not make it with the last minute cancellation of his flight to Dharamshala so his Shimla based disciple Haridatt Bharadwaj played in his place.
An unusual first of its kind concert was Jai Quehaeni dancing to vocal accompaniment by Vijayshri Vittal, disciple of Bombay Jayashri who sang the Carnatic equivalents of the same 5 Ragas, in the Hindustani style. (Ragas Bhairav, Malkauns, Khamach, Hindol and Kalyan). The act had been specially curated by Guru Chitra Visweswaran and Bombay Jayashri. It was incidentally Jai Quehaeni’s first concert in North India – “For me, if I have managed through this presentation of Bharatanatyam to kindle an interest in someone in the art, that would be enough for me. After the concert, someone came up to me and said this was not only a dance, it was really like a painting where every thing together completes the picture – the vocals, the percussion, the instruments, the lighting. Together, in all its hues, a total presentation is made”.
Wow, this sounds like an amazing experience. I love the description of it not being only a dance, but like a painting! That sounds beautiful, and I am sure the colours were spectacular!
I have never been to such a festival so I know it would be an exciting and great experience. Hopefully one day I do get to see one.
What an amazing sounding festival for people to attend to. I bet it is such a colourful and lively event – definitely something I would check out if I was in the area.
I’ve never been to this kind o festival, but it looks beautiful!
This sounds like an amazing festival. It looks like a lot of fun packed into a couple of days 🙂
What a beautiful event! I love going to festivals whenever I travel. This Trigart Ragamala music and dance festival is on my bucket list!
I do think that a dance like this would be so cool to watch. It does sound like a great event.
This looks very colourful and expressive. Over the years there seemed to be a lost of true artform in society so it is great to see it coming back in full force.
Ooo I would like to see this festival. I bet it’s a lot of fun to watch. I just love music.
Honestly, India’s culture is just so beautiful. Everything from this festival to Diwali and everything in between is awesome!