Ravi Prasad - Pédagogies
Pédagogies
The Indian Cabaret
Spectacular and musical !
The joy of encounters
The aim of the Indian Cabaret is to give life to new encounters.
It is all about the encounter between Ravi Prasad, an artist from Kerala (South India), singer and composer whose very own music has enriched itself constantly by confronting different horizons and artists of diverse expressions and culture featured in this show with their own manner of subtly evoking India.
A variety of experiences and languages
One of the featured artists is Indian, the others live in other parts of the world.
Ravi Prasad who said farewell to his homeland along time ago shares his culture, his sensitivity and his taste for investigating on the path that has lead him through the Occident. In this show he expresses the creator’s pleasure which has developed through many artistic encounters he managed to initiate. The bliss of the musician in duets with his partners with whom he changes onomatopoeias into rhythm and language. The joy of the actor as well when “grommelots” are used to express a range of feelings in unusual situations. The other artists bring along with their own knowledge, a variety of ethnic origins and artistic choices. They prove their generosity and their interest for innovation through their involvement in musical duets or by integrating in their acts, taking various shapes, an allusion to the Indian world avoiding any expression restricted to an exotic or folkloric point of view.
An atypical cabaret
The Indian Cabaret takes advantage of the charm of a nightly setting. It offers acts taking the audience to a universe where magic, dreams, poetry, sensuality have the leading role. The show far from being kept into one theatrical location also takes place in the least expected places. Everything is done to favour closeness with the audience to better surprise it, to exacerbate its senses and curiosity.
There is one space dedicated to music. This is where Ravi Prasad lives with musicians he has already met during preceding shows. Moments of sharing, musically and emotionally, through artistic dialogues always renewed where fluidity is tightly linked to complicity.
Depending on the evening one will enjoy duets with Dominique Regef (barrel organ), Kiko Ruiz (flamenco guitar), Philippe Gal (double bass and steel drums) or Frédéric Norel (jazz violin). Other musicians occasionally step in depending on where the show takes place and are informally invited to join in.
The Indian Cabaret combines itself with delight and celebration, relying to childhood vibrations, its desires, questionings, laughter, pleasures, its small fears also. This is the reason of the illusionist’s constant presence throughout the evening, contributing to the amazement and fascination linked to mystery. Each and every one of his performances is a rendezvous with incongruous and unsolvable poetry. The audience is being surprise by a tap dancer, briskly crossing worlds by following the rhythm of Indian percussions or a transformist whose costumes play with the continents.
This show that does not submit itself to any norm, also features two artists who are not necessarily expected in a cabaret. A dancer, trained to traditional Indian dances who brings forward a personal interpretation where she easily associated tradition and modernism with costumes made to emphasize sensuality. A storyteller whose deep and warm voice takes the audience in strange worlds where the absurd easily meets with philosophy.
To guide and bring coherence to the show, the show leader offers her energy, her inventiveness and generosity: she introduces artists she knows well, accompanies the discovery of each act by living in her own original world.
On Ravi Prasad’s path
He is the mastermind behind the Indian Cabaret project, another step on his path. He has moved to France in 1985, carrying a solid reputation as a carnatic (sacred) singer and is soon interested in jazz, electro-acoustic and contemporary music. His artistic freedom and unconditional taste for sounds allow him to team up with numerous collaborators and, on stage, expresses his vocal and instrumental (flute, Indian percussions, harmonica, jaw’s harp) virtuosity with power and sensitivity. With this approach, he actually dissociated himself from the millennial tradition of Indian music.
Physically very present in the Indian Cabaret, he lists new possibilities and even if music and vocals remain the way of expression he develops most, he also explores various types of languages, vocal or body languages. He sometimes turns into the illusionist’s assistant, leaves his familiar world to make an inventory of sounds or languages in situations that may defy him. This whole situation creates a peculiar character accepting the variations of his quest.
Ravi Prasad teamed up with Serge Fournet whom he met as soon as he arrived in France, to create and direct this show. Despite life’s hazards, they have kept up with each other’s artistic itinerary, one expressing himself through music and the other through theater. Both men are tied by a strong friendship which becomes even stronger as time passes by as the Indian Cabaret testifies.
Informations
art director : Ravi Prasad
Producer : Archipel et compagnie [ Jupin Barillet Associés ]
Renaud Barillet et Philippe Jupin
19-21, rue Boyer – 75020 Paris – France
Tél. + 33 (0) 1 53 27 35 77 – Fax : + 33 (0) 1 53 27 35 77
archipel.productions@wanadoo.fr
