When Krishna didn't want the Mahabharata

Last year, when Abhinav Grover, an alumnus of the Drama School Mumbai, returned from his two-year-long training at the Yakshagana Kendra in Udupi, he had only one aim - to introduce the urban audience to the folk art form of Yakshagana. This weekend, Grover, who is the co-founder of an alternative theatre group called BeTaal, hopes to achieve this with a one-of-a-kind performance called Krishna Sandhaan Yakshagaan.

Traditionally presented from dusk to dawn, Yakshagana is a theatre form that combines dance, music, dialogue, costume, make-up and stage techniques and is mainly performed in regions of Karnataka, says Grover, who has directed this particular performance. For this show, which is part of Studio Tamasha's artiste residency programme, Grover and co-artiste Vaishnavi Ratna Prashant, was inspired from the epic Rashmirathi, written by Hindi poet Ramdhari Singh Dinkar. "The section of the performance deals with the episode where Krishna goes to Duryodhana, and tells him that let's not go to war [Mahabharata]. He instead suggests that he part away with five villages for the five pandavas," says Grover.

Grover who has trained artistes for his contemporary rendering of the Yakshagana, combines dance with English, Hindi and Kannada dialogues to showcase the banter between an unrelenting Duryodhana and pleading Krishna. "I hope to present more Indian epics using folk art, but by making it more relatable and reachable, so that the urban audience enjoys it in equal measure," he adds.

When: 7 PM
Where: Studio Tamaasha, Bungalow No 76, Versova, Andheri West
To Book: in.bookmyshow.com
Free

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