Ki Batemon U Hynñiewtrep was more than a blend of tradition and creativity, says Kit Shangpliang
IN A situation where cultural polarities exist, we the people who appreciate arts live in the best of times and the worst of times. A festival of traditional music and cultural dance conceived and staged by the Hynñiewtrep Cultural & Welfare Organisation (HTCWO) precisely confirms the better section of this cultural situation.
This festival, Ki Batemon U Hynñiewtrep, can be defined as a Root Bridge, sensing, it is an event that bridges the present drifting generation to the ethnic roots. What supports the bridge is the traditionally-inspired performing arts witnessed on October 18 at U Soso Tham Auditorium in Shillong.
The show was beautifully wrapped as a dance and musical gift to the traditional and the non-traditional audience. Is it a creative project? Is it a going back-in-time attempt? It is both and beyond.
Supported by the Department of Arts and Culture, Meghalaya and the Indian Council for Cultural Relations, this event is a nostalgic call and a home coming of sort. Munish Singh, regional director, ICCR says, “For those people who should, but have a hazy idea on Khasi and Garo culture – it is about indiginising their taste as the musical and dance rediscovery happens.”
The musicians in the likes of Pynter Orchestra, Garo fusion band Ahowee and Damang Syngkon have attempted to lay the foundation based on the past inheritance, and to that end their music has invoked a sense of national pride. M War Nongbri, director, Arts and Culture, says. “With the available resources, HTCWO has done well. We value their ability to sustain their efforts especially the efforts to go to the schools and talk passionately about the culture of the place”.
From the critique’s note, the similarities of rhythmic patterns in Khasi music is somewhat a natural drawback but it should not be an impossible challenge to halt any kind of improvisation keeping the customary interests anchored. Come to think of it, the position of a strong rhythm specialist is a vacant post that needs a skilled and open-minded visionary to work – finding ways to re-pattern the rhythm sections in a creatively expandable groove keeping the spirit of traditions intact.
What HTCWO has done should pave way for traditionally concerned drummers to think afresh about the rhythm section of Khasi music. Listening to the rhythm-man, percussionist Mark Williams, also playing in the concert, “Have we thought of a Bangra rhythm without a kick, someone thought of it and now we have a kick embedded to every Bangra rhythm and it works so well without really distorting the genres’ ethos”. The Khasi rhythm section could chose to go that way or should it? After all, culture be it in music form or other forms evolves – that’s why it’s called culture.
On the evolution of traditional music and the use of musical instruments, if the guitar, the tabla, the Khasi sitar or the duitara (dotara), have been embedded to Khasi indigenous music (at least in this show) – the need for appropriate fill-ins is here and now. Can’t we introduce the use of string instruments or fill-in samples? Or could we think of a more scientific research in refining these instruments, how about standardising the intonation of the wind instrument ka Tangmuri so it goes along with the other melody-based instruments? Until indigenous music realises and moves away from that play-it-safe musicality – the beautiful music of the hills may be dwarfed by the absence of precision and conviction.
All said and done, the music and the dances from Ki Batemon U Hynñiewtrep is a heritage innovation rooted in the traditional earth of culture here in Meghalaya. It should push the artistic community to be introspective, pursue excellence and sustain their works of art as well as giving a fair treatment to originality.