Gitanjali [I feel the earth move] | 3.5/5

SINGAPORE — The Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore’s most famous collection of poems, Gitanjali, was the inspiration for The Necessary Stage’s latest multi-media/intercultural/interdisciplinary production.

His lyrical verses weave in and out of the occasionally mesmerising and occasionally mystifying maze-like and fragmented universe of Gitanjali [I feel the earth move], which is likewise a nod to a previous 1997 work, Galileo [I feel the earth move]. The piece’s backbone is a fairly conventional story — a traditional dance teacher in India named Savitri (a fierce, acid-tongued and delightfully memorable character played by Padma Sagaram) reluctantly passes on the reins to her dwindling school to practical-minded son Shankara (Ebi Shankara). But only because her top student Priya (dancer Raka Maitra) decides to move overseas to spread her experimental wings. Meanwhile Shankara gets matchmade with Singaporean Indian Nandini (Sharda Harrison), who reluctantly lets go of a previous relationship with a non-Indian. There’s much dramatic potential here but director Alvin Tan and playwright Haresh Sharma go for the cosmic and have loftier plans, opting instead to ruminate on the philosophical side of the production’s themes of family, the traditional-modern dilemma, the purpose of art, etc. Indeed, you could say that at points, the production “hallucinates” as it were, and attempts to speak in a different language — that of dance.

Of course, poetry and song firmly have their place here. In the background, sound artist Bani Haykal juggles singing and spoken word chores with live-and-looped music, and the voice of Namita Mehta holds you spellbound. The atmosphere the duo creates is one of the strongest aspects of Gitanjali.

But ultimately, it is dance that wants to stamp its mark. Contemporary dancer Jereh Leong, primarily as Priya’s love interest, has a few turns, as does Maitra, who reveals her classical Odissi training. Tagore himself suggestively appears as Laotian dancer (and the show’s choreographer) Ole Khamchanla, his impressive and commanding hip-hop-inspired moves are literally poetry in motion.

While there are interesting, isolated moments, however, dance makes for one strange bedfellow amidst everything. For one, there are multiple dance vocabularies used. When Maitra’s stiff Indian classical dance meets Leong’s improvisational contemporary dance, there’s a slight awkwardness but without the necessary hint of tension. The constant “code-switching” between dance and theatre can occasionally be jarring, too. While both may affect a viewer in a visceral manner, they do so in different ways. Interesting as the interplay was, that final link seems to be missing.

Throughout Gitanjali [I feel the earth move], we presume the overriding presence of Tagore and the relationship between his verses and life with the story of Savitri’s family. But for this reviewer, the connections are obscured under the many elements the play dishes out (verses from other poets like Keats and Eliot are mentioned, there’s a reference to the Mumbai racial riots in 1992, Tagore’s haunting portraits are shown, for instance) and, also, by the multiple ways these elements are presented, including gorgeous video projections from Brian Gothong Tan.

Undoubtedly, there is heart here, but it doesn’t not reveal itself so easily in this complex assemblage of text, movement and image. The ground may not have trembled for this reviewer, to be honest, but hopefully there is some shifting that takes place elewhere. It’s a grand, ambitious undertaking from TNS and one of those rare times they step out from the black box. And collaborations like these between disciplines are always one that should be welcomed in a performing arts scene with its different silos.

Gitanjali [I feel the earth move] runs until Sept 28, 8pm and 3pm, at SOTA Drama Theatre. Tickets from S$25 to S$45 at SISTIC. In English and Tamil with English subtitles.