Tell an Asian to exercise, and she will probably hear it as ‘extra rice’. There is more than a grain of truth in that old joke. For Asians, rice is life.
So it came as a shock for Aravinth Kumarasamy, artistic director of Apsaras Arts Dance Academy, Singapore, when his friend, a schoolteacher, told him that students in his class thought that rice came “from a packet in the supermarket”. He was taken aback by the fact that in a country where rice is a staple, students had no clue about its origin. A few days later, he visited an Indian school in Singapore. He noticed a patch of paddy on the campus, and asked the principal about it. “The children think that rice comes from the supermarket,” said the principal. Hence the show and tell.
That is when Kumarasamy thought that the younger generation needs to be educated on rice. He did not want to be preachy, and so Arisi: Rice-Grains of Life―a multidisciplinary dance show involving bharatnatyam and Balinese dancers―took form.
Rice is the staple food for at least half the world’s population, connecting cultures and civilisations. “I thought that this should be a subtle message and the main show should talk about the rice cycle and the rice culture,” says Kumarasamy, a Sri Lankan based in Singapore. He sat down to write the script with that one-liner in mind. But before that, he travelled the world, researching the significance of rice in the life of Asians. So, Arisi takes you through the paddy fields of Tamil Nadu’s Thanjavur to Indonesia’s Bali, weaving in the traditions, festivals and celebrations rooted in and around rice.
The diversity shows through in the production, too. Kumarasamy brought together creative minds like Mohanapriyan Thavarajah of Apsaras Arts, Balinese arts Prof I. Wayan Dibia and dramaturg Lim Ho Ngean for choreography and other aspects of the production. In November 2022, bharatnatyam dancers from India and Singapore, Balinese dancers, dramaturgy experts from Singapore, lighting and set designers, and members of the Singapore-Chinese orchestra came together for the first show in Singapore. Today, the 75-minute dance show, tracing the journey of a new generation farmer from Thanjavur to Singapore, has been performed in rice bowls across the world.
In Chennai, 20 dancers―seven from Bali and the rest from India and Singapore―performed the show during the Margazhi music season in January. Singaporean Wong Chee Wai put up a unique set with around 600 rice stalks, each about 1.6m tall. “This is played around with to show a paddy field, a decorative element and rainfall,” said Kumarasamy.
Apart from the props, what made the stage come truly alive was the music. At one point, a baby’s cry rent the air. For a while, the audience thought there was a toddler among them. But then the curtains went up, and it was clear the baby’s cry, signifying the connection between rice and childbirth, came from the stage.
The music was by Indian composer Rajkumar Bharathi, who blended his compositions with Balinese instruments. The lyrics have elements from the works of Tamil poets like Manickavasagar, Kambar and Subrahmanya Bharathi. “We had to work through several challenges, such as integrating Chinese notes, western music and Indian ragas,” said Bharathi. “I was very particular that we should not mimic each other's genre and worked towards getting a perfect synergy. The whole production was a surreal experience, and I wanted the audience to experience a seven-dimensional sound with both recorded music and live orchestra.” Ace music producer Sai Shravanam was in charge of the engineering and sound design, and light design was by Gyandev Singh from India.
Sound? Check. Lights? Check. All set, it was a moonwalk (figuratively, of course) for the dancers. But why combine bharatnatyam and Balinese dance? “The southeast Asian-Indian link has always fascinated me,” says Kumarasamy, who has trained in bharatnatyam from Kalakshetra in Chennai. “Bharatnatyam and Balinese dance are rooted in natyasasthra. Also, Bali’s rice culture is very strong―Indonesia was the first country to export rice in the 10th century BCE.”
There may be several cross-cultural references in the production, but it all comes down to this core idea that Kumarasamy had―“I only want to tell people how rice is rich in culture and tradition,” he said, “and how it is something more than a grain.”