Songs of the Bulbul, an hour long solo dance performance by Aakash Odedra, brings to life a Sufi myth about a caged bird singing sweet songs of longing for liberation in conditions of increasingly erosive captivity. Odedra presents this work as a parallel to the experience of an artist, longing to attain transcendence, while leaving a part of himself behind on every stage where he performs for an audience.
I first encountered Aakash Odedra Company’s work in Samsara, performed as part of the Asia TOPA festival in 2020, and was moved to my core by the skill and grace with which they captured complex and abstract concepts, and the ease with which they translated them for their audience. That work, and another that I had the privilege to attend a few years after, Little Murmur (performed by Subhash Viman Gorania), sealed my deep regard for their mastery in their craft. In Songs of the Bulbul, I was delighted to recognize many of the signature elements of Odedra’s earlier works that had already left an indelible mark on me, but with an additional unexpected layer – his flawless embodiment of the titular Bulbul.
Soulful Persian/Sufi stories, songs and themes, traditional Indian instruments and orchestral music, woven together with Odedra’s prodigious Kathak skills, underlined with elegantly minimal set design, and accentuated with bold, directional lighting design, together create a deeply evocative and mesmerizing experience that holds the audience spell bound for the entirety of the hour. The simplicity of the storyline is unpacked into an unforgettable, richly layered experience.
Odedra flies across the stage with breathtaking variety in choreography, sometimes embodying weightless, ecstatic freedom in delicate, bird-like movements, at other times embodying an anguished soul trapped under the heavy bonds of trials and struggles, and at other times still, exhibiting a determined and resilient drive to keep striving for fullness in the expression of his being. Although he indicates at the very start where the story will go, he maintains elements of surprise, and skilfully navigates twists and turns with poetic reveals. The precision of Odedra’s movements, whether it be his full body-and-outfit flights across the stage, or whether it be in the focused tremble of his fingertips, watched by his own eyes and every eye in the audience, creates a powerful anchor into the present moment, and it is impossible to be anywhere but where his movements, and the production’s exquisitely crafted technical elements, take you.
Songs of the Bulbul is running at The Arts Centre (Playhouse) from 3 – 7 February.
Jaya Berged 