The Womadelaide Festival of Arts this year brings us a surprise package in the form of "Manganiyar Classroom".
In an exclusive interview with the Director Roysten Abel, Kumud Merani finds out the motive behind reviving this dying Folk Music of Rajasthan which was originally patronised by Kings.
Roysten Abel, the director of The Manganiyar Classroom (India) a 35 boy choir aged 8 - 16, said, 'Over the last two years during my interactions with the bright kids I encountered 7 years ago I experience something very shocking. These bright kids had lost all the spark they had and a veil of glumness had descended over their faces. I realized what the education system in the villages was doing to these first generation school goers. It was time for the Manganiyar Classroom.'
The Manganiyar are the Muslim communities in Sindh, Pakistan and in the desert of Rajasthan, India: famous for their classical folk music and are the groups of hereditary professional musicians, whose music has been supported by wealthy landlords and aristocrats for generations.
The Manganiyar kids stun you with their talent – each of them a repository of song, dance and rhythm. However, at the end of the performance, there is a painful recognition of how they are doomed to be carriers of a tradition, forgotten to be included in the programs of ‘progress’.
The Manganiyar Classroom features a theatrically inspired staging where 35 boys aged 8-16, all inheritors of threatened musical traditions – battle hilariously with the rigid conformity demanded of the classroom but where a joyous and exuberant musical celebration triumphs.
With sublime voices matched by their onstage attitude, the children of The Manganiyar Classroom rebel against their teacher, spontaneously creating beautiful music before your eyes. The result is a joyous theatrical experience that will captivate and delight – but it’s also a stirring protest against the prevailing education system in India.
