A visceral circle of designers
Maynard James Keenan, an American singer, songwriter, musician, record producer, actor, and winemaker once said,
“A circle is the reflection of eternity. It has no beginning and it has no end – and if you put several circles over each other, then you get a spiral.”
I had a first hand experience of this quote during a recent zoom event attended by the alumni of my alma mater “National Institute of Design”.
For me it was a very special day. A large group of alumni of the National Institute of Design (NID) gathered on zoom to celebrate our shared memories of dancing Garba for nine nights during the festival of Navaratri.
The gathering represented graduates of the NID over fifty years. Every decade since 1970s up until this year was represented by a session of story telling, sharing of videos and singing of Garba.
We belonged to different generations, different regions of India, and even different religions and cultures of India. Yet, when the drums started beating and the singing of Garba began, there was an instant visceral connection between all of us- as if we belong to the same circle in which we danced year after year to the same beat and to the same songs.
The videos depicted the influence of evolving technology used for creating the lighting and the environment, and investment of money that went into decorations, yet what we were enjoying was not the visual aspects of the evolving finesse in the presentation but the rawness of the energy that was flowing spontaneously out of us as we participated in this session. The word design was never uttered, though each of us spent between four and six (or more) years at the NID studying design.
Community dancing has a unique place in different world cultures. A circle formation is a powerful design element for letting one’s energy out while the mind is focused on the center of the circle. The repeating patterns of body movement to the beat of the drums and chanting of the songs take us into a state of trans for hours.
I was delighted to see a new innovative feature introduced in the garba performed at NID much after my class graduated. In this version of Garba. Everyone holds a lamp in their hand as they gyrate. slowly and rhythmically in a circle. The effect is mesmerizing. It’s called Diya Dance. While for most part the Garba and Dandiya are performed with a rigorous force. But during the Diya dance, it turns into a soft, gentle and graceful performance.
The voices of some of the Garba singers (alumni) we heard today were more authentic and melodious than most of the modern day singers who use electronic technology to add glamor to their performance. I was soaked in nostalgia. I realized how important community dancing is to my sense of identity and to my feeling of belonging to my culture.
Thank you Chandu Bheda for organizing it and to so many NID alumni who worked hard to bring alive memories of every decade of Garba dancing from the last fifty years.
Each of the participants on the zoom call were accomplished designers- many of them have attained celebrity status. The zoom event was a cathartic experience for us all. We realised, No matter which circle we belonged to, together we created a ripple effect that was deeply entrenched in our roots. Over time design elements changed, but the essence remained the same.
Modern designers have something to learn from this experience. How do we explore and express contemporary design while retaining an eternal connection to something deeper we all share as humans with a culture.
Here is an extract from the evening’s program
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Credits:
Anchoring & Co-ordination
Chandrashekhar Bheda
Singers
Bharti Prajapati
Chandrashekhar Bheda
Neeta Verma
Prakash Moorthy
Prasoon Pandey
Sangeeta Sen
Sangita Shroff
Shibani Dasgupta Jain
Sonal Dabral
Sophie Gaur
Santoor
Sunil Dixit
Art
Shrikrishna Kulkarni
Song Videos
Prakash Moorthy
Prasoon Pandey
Sonal Dabral
Photographs
Angira Shah
Anil Madan
Chandrashekhar Bheda
Devika Krishnan
Hasmuck Prajapati
Jayant Bhojia
Mallikarun Konduri
Parthiv Shah
Prasoon Pandey
Sagarmoy Paul,
Saikat Paul
Samar Jodha
Sangeta Sen
Santita Shroff
Sonal Dabral
Sophie Gaur
Sarita Sundar
Suresh Eriyat
VV Krishnan
Vikram Augustine
Vinod Sivan
NIDAA
Audio & Video Editing
Abhiroop Paul
