The Manganiyar Seduction

The Manganiyar Seduction
By Roysten Abel. Can & Abel Theatres Production - Concert Hall, Queensland Performing Arts Centre (QPAC), March 1 and 2, 2018; then Arts Centre Melbourne, and Botanic Park, Adelaide.

When you imagine a show called ‘spectacular’ it usually conjures a giddying, colourful array of acrobats, jugglers, plate-spinners and exotic dancers. Well, the Manganiyar Seduction is all of these things – only the visions occur in your mind’s eye – a mirage, an oasis created by the power that comes from 40 musicians performing traditional folk music together.

These are desert songs, handed down from generation to generation of hereditary musicians from communities in Jaisalmer, Barmer and Jodhpur, in the heart of India’s Thar Desert. Their emotionally moving repertoire of ballads and Sufi poems has been performed for Kings – but also at weddings, parties and feasts! This is a celebration of music as a life force.

The musicians play a variety of instruments and sing together in a range of vocal styles. The stage set highlights each individually or in unison by a clever design that has each performer spotlit in a separate window box – in a frame of 33 squares. The hour-long song is a journey starting with one voice and one stringed instrument. The piece builds and builds, as they are joined by other vocals, khamaychas (an evocative instrument that resembles a cross between a guitar and sitar), dholak drums, and percussion from the khartaal (a type of castanet) played by an enigmatic and raging tiger of a conductor at the front of the stage.

The performance in this Royal palace, chocolate-box showcase format was conceived by Director Roysten Abel as an opening for the Delhi Film Festival in 2006. The Manganiyar musicians have delighted audiences across the globe ever since – in New York and all over Europe and Asia – from Salzburg to Singapore. If you, too, want to be transported away to exotic lands, steep yourself in musical history, see, hear and experience the splendour, let yourself be seduced by the Manganiyar players.

Beth Keehn

Subscribe to our E-Newsletter, buy our latest print edition or find a Performing Arts book at Book Nook.