This was a world premiere that came trailing clouds of glory: those of us who saw Aakash Odedra’s lovely Samsara (based on the Chinese epic Journey to the West) in the 2022 Edinburgh International Festival had high expectations of this year’s offering, Songs of the Bulbul. Ostensibly a sadly soulful, plotless solo based around the Sufi myth of the bulbul (a singing bird often kept in cages, which was said to sing more sweetly as it approached release in death), it brought together North Indian Kathak dance, Sufi myth and Islamic poetry.
On Emanuele Salamanca’s starkly beautiful set, heaps of red rose petals covered the floor, while rows of pillar candles stood unlit (later shining, flickering and dying as the dance became more intense), and a few hanging tree branches suggested the freedom of the natural world, gradually becoming the bars of a cage. Slowly emerging from a heap in the corner, Odedra quickly blossomed into a joyful being celebrating nature and freedom. Now covering the stage in high leaps and spins, white skirts swirling, now pattering in tiny bird-like steps, with hands a-flutter and quirky, birdy head movements, the dancer was at once the bulbul itself, rejoicing in its freedom, and a man admiring the soul of a bird.
The music, without which none of this would have been possible, began as mostly percussive tabla and bansuri (flute) but broadened out into a more lyrical and then dramatic orchestral mix. Singers Sarthak Kalyani and Abi Sampa sang pain and yearning as only Indian vocalists can.
Traditionally, Kathak uses hand movements and complex footwork, as well as facial expression, to tell stories. But there was no story here, more a meditation on death and the fleetingness of life. (In a programme note, Odedra dedicates the piece to his mother, “my smiling bulbul who left her cage’’). But “meditation” is perhaps the wrong word here, suggesting as it does stillness and personal quiet. Odedra’s performance was flamboyant yet intimate at the same time. Arms raised as if in prayer, delicate hands collecting heaps of rose petals, then hands pinioned behind his back as if yearning for release. Wonderful to see such grace and musicality in a male performer! It ended, of course, in anguish, what seemed to be ecstatic re-birth from a kind of chrysalis and then… a puff of breath.
A stunning solo performance, it was only when Aakash Odedra ushered onstage his collaborators (delightfully miming their individual contribution for the audience) that it became clear how many others had been involved – all seasoned performers and established artists in their own right and embracing Indian classical music, traditional dance and a dash of Bollywood. All, I think, genuinely moved, we stood to congratulate choreographer Rani Khanam, costume designer Kanika Thakur, composer Rushil Ranjan and, of course, the stupendous musicians and vocalists of the Manchester Camerata, with whom the piece was created.
