aBOUT nOTHinG

After numerous failed attempts to watch a play or screening of
a foreign film at IHC, I managed(just in the nick of time) to reach
their today to watch "About Nothing" a musical directed by
Ashley Lobo, as a part of the ongoing Hungry Heart Festival '07..
Got slightly disappointed initially as we were made to buy tickets
@Rs200/person and not @Rs50(the amount we had settled for earlier)..

With 500 coming from one pocket, 200 from another and 100
from another we managed 800 bucks for 4 tickets
(A friend also had to sprint to the ATM to get some cash for our dinner).
That was the day's end for our disappointment,anxiety and any other feeling
that can be categorized as non positive..

Enter the world of Drama,Music and DANCE.....

About Nothing is a visual interpretation of story of a boy named
Salman, his moments of joy, despair,angst and pain in his quest
for survival.

The Musical was narrative in nature, with just one protagonist who
verbalized about various things/feelings that one encounters in
the journey called Life. A bald guy in late 20's played the
protagonist, speaking in English with an occasional word or two in Hindi.
The motifs change every 5-7 minutes varying from
"The pressure children go through these days" to "Relationships".

I found it extremely good that after every few minutes of
"food for thought" by the narrator, a Dancy(another word is born)
version of the same followed..The performances came in numerous forms
with eclectically chosen, made for each other, pieces of music..I wonder
if anyone from the audience could pronounce which had a broader
spectrum, the topics that narrator's spoke on, the forms of music or
the styles of dance....

Few lines that clung to me

Relationships...Why at all do we need relationships ?
Why are we always on a lookout for new relationships or
trying to better the existing ones ?
Can't we all be living on isolated islands, Alone without being Lonely ??

Profundity...
Is the Joy a rich kid gets from fiddling with a new remote control more
than the Joy a street urchin gets by dragging a tyre with a rope ??

Sophistication,Love, Relationships,Respect,Family,Joy
and a few more were the words that were dissected and shown various
facets of...Though the verbalizing was quite good, the dance got better
of it almost every time..From Rumba to Tap Dance, Dance all the way
it was..Young girls and boys performing the toughest,never seen before,
how can she do it moves had the audience enraptured....

For the songs that were played the ones that familiar ones were
chamma chamma, welcome to the jungle and a song from devdas
..As far the dance was concerned I particularly liked the Tap Dance
(they created music by clapping/tapping n what not), rumba and
another concoction that came after the theme "Love"..The on stage
chemistry for this piece was as amazing as the dance itself....

It was a bonus to see some familiar faces(from Dx) on stage namely
Pooja, Garima and Shohini. I am quite certain that I would have
enjoyed "About Nothing" as much had I not been a Dance Enthusiast myself.

Kudos to Ashley and the Danceworx team for this splendid effort.