EKATVA show piece: Flying Kites Dance and Drama

Uttarayan season in Gujarat is a very festive season. Here Muslims hand make kites that are flown by Hindus. All colors, shapes and sizes full of richness fill the sky and truly become a majestic sight of ‘Oneness’. In this spirit Mallika Didi, and her Darpana staff and musicians: Pappan Sir, Sonal Didi, Nisargbhai, Stanley bhai, Nayan bhai, Jigneshbhaii, and others have created a sequence on Uttaryan for the EKATVA show. It is going to be a really fun part of the show.

Virenbhai Doing the Dance

Virenbhai, one of the humble founders of Manav Sadhna is a man of great love and spirit. It was God's blessing upon him 20 years ago, that sparked the entire journey of Manav Sadhna; and has since deeply touched thousands and thousands of souls and hearts. He has dedicated over 20 years of his life to serving the underprivileged from a deep space of selflessness. No expectations. No strings attached. He works half his life in America making enough money to sustain himself in India, then he moves to India to serve. Back and forth like this, he earns to live and lives to serve.

I may not have mentioned also that he considers himself one of the worst dancers in the world. So when we asked him to take part in dancing with the kids in the kite flying dance, he obviously declined. But after enough of the kids requesting, he couldn’t resist. This is our short but joyful glimpse of Virenbhai taking part in the kite flying dance choreography for the EKATVA show.

In deep love and gratitude for who he is.

EKATVA Script Taking Life...

The experiment continues.

What’s the experiment?

What happens to a group of children if you use art, dance and music as a medium of connecting, and through time plants seeds of love and compassion. How do the children transform? How does their environment transform? How do their ripples spread locally, then globally? How do we, ourselves, change in the process?

We have spent a lot of the past year and months dedicated to planting seeds of values and compassion in our kids and in ourselves. All the while developing their raw skills, movement, rhythm, openness, and acting.

Finally the time has come to start working on the actual  EKATVA show. The script for the EKATVA show is starting to take shape.

Its been a long time in development. Trying to brainstorm and feel out what Oneness means to all of us.

There are a few themes that continue to stick with us that we are working on including:

Faith | Nature | Diversity | Unity | Greed and Fear |Interconnectivity between Man, Machine and Nature | Self Sustainability | Equality | Untouchability, Racism, Classism.

Here is a scene that Pappan Sir is working with the kids on taking the theme of Unity, Diversity, peace and conflict depicted through a famous Gujarati kite festival called “Uttaryan”.

 Love.