ELECTROMAGNETIC INDUCTION
With inspired casting choices and riveting drama, Season 3 of The Crown dazzles
MAGNETIC FIELDS stands apart from other Indian music festivals on multiple counts. There’s the palace hotel location, Alsisar Mahal in Rajasthan; the limited capacity, a little over 4,000 people; and the line-up, cutting-edge acts from India and abroad.
Over the years, the festival, the seventh edition of which will take place from December 13-15, has evolved in size and scope. The stages have increased from two in 2013 to seven, and the roster has grown to incorporate more live acts. “Our heart will always be in electronic music because that’s a passion of a lot of the team,” says Munbir Chawla, co-founder of online music magazine and events agency Wild City, which organises the festival along with Alsisar Mahal, production company THOT and creative entrepreneurs Kunal Lodhia and Smita Singh Rathore. “The [overall] lack of live music [in the industry] is something that we have noticed, so we’re trying to make a conscious effort to add more. The ratio of electronic to live acts [at the festival] is something like 65:35.”
In keeping with this endeavour, this year’s headliners, UK-based duo Maribou State, will perform with their band. Chawla says his criteria for booking an artist includes whether they have a following here and whether he personally likes their music. “The programming is a mix of what’s current globally and what’s relevant in the indie space of India,” he says. “That there’s a little more techno this year can be attributed to the fact that it’s a growing genre around the world. [Also] now a lot of the DJs are multi-genre selectors [rather than those who only play a particular style].” Among the big-ticket acts are US-based DJ-producer The Black Madonna who spins an assortment of house, disco and techno.
Other changes have included the introduction of such parallel activities as the Magnetic Words storytelling sessions, the Magnetic Sanctuary wellness zone and the Magnetic Feasts weekend brunches. “We had this vision of a multidisciplinary event [that] also showcased the best of what’s happening in the Indian creative landscape, in art or design,” says Chawla. “Now that we’ve developed, we’ve been able to incorporate more
THOUGH ITS LINEUP HAS DIVERSIFIED, THE FOCUS OF MAGNETIC FIELDS IS STILL ON ELECTRONIC MUSIC
of those elements.”
Another thing that distinguishes Magnetic Fields is its special festival commissions. This time, they include a collaborative set by electronic musician Riatsu aka Shadaab Kadri and singer-harpist Nush Lewis, and an audio-visual presentation by producer Spryk whose real name is Tejas Nair. “That they allow artists room to express themselves is special,” says Nair.
Because it’s held on a private property in a small town, Magnetic Fields runs through the night, another big factor that separates it from similar events. A genre like techno is “music made for the night time”, says Sohail Arora, founder of artist and event management company Krunk. “Experiencing that music at those hours makes it very authentic.” Arora, an electronic music DJ, has performed previously at Magnetic Fields as EZ Riser, his bass-heavy project. He will return this year with a new avatar called Rafiki.
Chawla says that six years on, the challenges of mounting the event remain the same—getting desert land festival-ready by installing plumbing, wiring and bringing in equipment from across India. There’s also the fact that the pricing makes it an elitist affair; tickets for a season pass cost over Rs 13,000 for those willing to pitch their own tents (there’s barely any accommodation outside palace grounds). “I can see how it would be unaffordable for some,” says Chawla. “[I think] it’s very fair for what we’re offering and financially for what it takes to make it happen in the location it’s in.” ■
-Amit Gurbaxani
Igor Stravinsky’s spellbinding score for ‘The Rite of Spring’ isn’t a usual soundtrack for a Kuchipudi performance. Bhavana Reddy, however, makes this contrast seem natural. Daughter of the legendary Raja Radha and Kaushalya Reddy, she will be seen dancing to Stravinsky in a Los Angeles Philharmonic production premiering at the Walt Disney Concert Hall on December 6. Reddy is the sole Indian classical dancer in an ensemble that includes six modern dancers. This is also the first time she will be performing with a western classical orchestra comprising one hundred musicians.
“In Indian classical dance, the orchestra follows the dancers and the dancer has the freedom,” says Reddy in a phone interview from LA. “In this case, it’s the conductor who has the freedom and we have to follow them. It was a bit daunting at first. I felt like I was in a sea of foreign material.” What came to her rescue was the vast vocabulary of movement and grace Kuchipudi affords, as also her training in western music at the Musicians’ Institute in Hollywood.
Reddy isn’t the first Indian classical dancer to participate in a modern or contemporary dance production. Paris-based Kuchipudi dancer Shantala Shivalingappa was a part of tanztheater pioneer Pina Bausch’s Bamboo Blues, while more recently, UKbased kathak dancer, Vidya Patel, featured in Richard Alston’s An Italian in Madrid. Unlike them, though, Reddy will stick to her Kuchipudi roots. This 40-minute ‘Rite of Spring’ version, says Reddy, sets out to reach an audience that includes children. “We don’t talk about sacrifice outrightly,” she says. “It’s more about coming of age and becoming one with God.” She plays the sage who “uses mime and complex rhythmic patterns” to enlighten “villagers about the wonders of the earth”, as per choreographer Kitty McNamee’s note.
Reddy today shuttles between LA, where she lives with her musician-songwriter husband, Dennis Nilsson, and Delhi, her home. “One has to spend significant time learning in India,” she says. “No matter how much you practise, there’s so much you can learn. The well never dries up.” ■
It is 1964. After the blue-eyed innocence of Claire Foy over two seasons, the introduction of a restrained Olivia Colman as Elizabeth makes instant demands of the viewer. It takes just one line from Her Majesty to ratify the casting choice. The queen is grappling with the fact of ageing, plus the prospect of a Labour PM whom she suspects of having Russian ties. And so we’re offered the template along which the season’s drama will unfold. A developing crisis in the UK underscored by a more personal issue in Buckingham Palace.
Then there’s Helena Bonham Carter as the despondent Princess Margaret, flaunting shades of earlier characters, from the Red Queen to Bellatrix Lestrange and, finally, an older Prince Philip, played by Tobias Menzies, who could pass off as a royal any day of the week.
Stylistically, the 10 episodes doff their preppy hats to different genres. The creators flirt with the Cold War spy genre in Episode 1. Aberfan is pure disaster drama. There’s a touch of The Da Vinci Code in the introduction to Prince Philips’s chain-smoking mother, played by Jane Lapotaire, who lives in exile as a nun in Athens. The moon-landing episode touches space movie territory. These are welcome departures for the viewer from the chandelier-lit palace halls (in Imbroglio, the chandeliers are traded for candles as Britain faces power cuts in reply to a miners’ strike).
’Tis also the season where the troubled Prince Charles suffers heartbreak at the hands of one Camilla Shand, who ends up marrying her “obsession”, Andrew Parker Bowles. Princess Anne, now mouthing a David Bowie song, now sparring with Andrew in bed, is a godsend for royal voyeurs. The overarching sense, though, is of a sordid saga unfolding. Apt.
As ever, it is Elizabeth who holds it all together. From a conciliatory visit to the dying Edward VIII to her 25th wedding anniversary speech, she balances authority and humanity with aplomb. The richest and most famous woman in the world doesn’t naturally evoke empathy. To Colman’s credit, her Elizabeth does. ■
-Rehana Munir
THE 10 EPISODES IN THE LATEST SEASON DOFF THEIR PREPPY HATS TO DIFFERENT GENRES