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Rajasthani musicians performs at Lincoln Theatre music festival
By siliconindia
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Friday, 03 December 2010, 13:28 IST
New York: Lincoln Center's 'White Light' festival closed with a showing of the 'The Manganiyar Seduction,' at the Rose Theater from the Manganiyars, a caste of singers and instrumentalists from Rajasthan, reports Desi Talk.
The show , a 70-minute theatrical presentation conceived by the Indian director Roysten Abel, was a melange of Muslim and Hindu traditions, with the 36 performers stationed in boxes laid out in a vertical grid, nine boxes across, four high. They wore traditional pajama like clothing and a variety of turban styles supplemented with earrings and their trade-mark mustaches. Though the community is Muslim, it embraces Hindu deities and festivals.
The evening's presentation included two shorter songs - "Halariya," a Hindu celebration of Krishna's birth, and 'Neendarli,' a traditional expression of a wife's love for her husband - woven into "Alfat Un Bin In Bin," a Sufi devotional based on poetry by Bulleshah. The 38 musicians, all men in turbans and robes, and all Muslim apart from one Hindu, sat or kneeled in red-draped cubicles, stacked in four tiers and illuminated.
The festival included a series of performances around a theme of spirituality in a set period of time accompanied by talks and gatherings. Notable among the gatherings were post-performance mixers at the cafe at Alice Tully Hall, according to the festival website.