Thank you for making Samadhina Trance, the first fund-raiser for the Walk of Hope 2015-16, a spectacular success

 
Success Gyan and Friends of Walk of Hope presented Padmasri Shobana‘s latest production Samadhina Trance, to a packed audience at The Music Academy, Chennai, on 9th November, 2014.

This was the first fundraiser and awareness program in the cultural domain conducted for Sri M’s Walk of Hope 2015-16.

The evening started with the projection of the introductory film of Walk of Hope 2015-16 on to a large cyclorama screen. With the auspicious lighting of the lamp by Sri M and Mrs. Sunanda Ali, followed by a brief but eloquent description of the purpose of Walk of Hope by Sri M, the evening was set in motion. Padmasri Shobana’s production, highlighting stories from various religious backgrounds to a fusion of different genres of music and musical instruments, had wonderful artists from across the country – Padmasri Vijay Ghate on the tabla, with Ghatam Karthik presented a percussion jugalbandi par excellence, and so were the duo of Sanjoy Das and Prithvi Chandrashekar on the electric guitar and keyboard respectively.They were all strung together exquisitely through the mellifluous voice of Revathy Kumar, who rendered Ashtapadis, Kafis and pop tunes with equal elan.

The first was the depiction of the story of Mary Magdalene. Padmasri Shobana’s students ably depicted it through theatre and dance to instrumental music from “the last Kingdom”. Shobana entered next with an invocatory piece on Lord Shiva as the King of Yoga. This was a purely classical piece done to a famous stotra ( a hymn addressed to the Divine ) by sage Patanjali, and was followed by a varna depicting Shakti as Meenakshi and Mahakali.

Shobana then brought to stage, the antics of little Krishna through the famous bhajan,“achutam keshavam“,that culminated in a brilliant depiction of Draupadi’s Vastrakshepam. The stage now came alive as Vrindavan, where Krishna and Radha and the Gopikas danced the Raslila ( Dance of Divine Love ) through Jayadeva’s Ashtapadis. The backdrop changed to show towering minarets, and the stage next became the venue for a Sufi Quwwali, which was followed by a visual interpretation of the Hanuman Chalisa to pop beats, and as the curtains came down, it was a fitting finale to see Padmasri Shobana paying respects to Sri M.

Thank you all once again for your overwhelming support to the Walk of Hope 2015-16.

Let us all join together to walk for a better India !

Sri M on the Walk of Hope 2015-16