Priya Chetty-Rajagopal’s earliest reminiscence of Cubbon Park’s iconic bandstand is listening to the Madras Sappers, one of many oldest of three Madras regiments of the Corps of Engineers which might be headquartered in Bengaluru, play there, again within the Seventies.
“The bandstand has military band origins, so it has always been about the military for me,” says the founding father of the citizen-led initiative, Heritage Beku, which has been instrumental in reviving cultural performances on the Cubbon Park bandstand. The initiative, she says, was catalysed by this dream of bringing the navy band again to the park. “That is where it started: saying that we need the bands to play again because it offers a sense of such majesty,” says Priya, whose father was a Sapper too.
While the bandstand, first constructed by the British within the 1900s to showcase their navy and police bands and renovated by the Horticultural Department a number of years in the past, was a degree of magnificence and aesthetics, Priya says, “it was fallow, offering a visual perspective, but not enabling cultural interaction.” Performances used to happen right here repeatedly, round twenty years in the past, however had develop into extraordinarily sporadic.
This was one thing Priya managed to alter in December final yr, kickstarting the initiative with a recital by the Saralaya Sisters. Since then, come Sunday morning, round 8 am, it transforms right into a public efficiency house, open to anybody who desires to expertise a slice of Bengaluru’s cultural heritage, together with the park’s many canine residents. “We love the parkies (the dogs who live in Cubbon Park) and they occasionally bless us with their presence,” says Priya, who believes that bringing artwork to a public house is democratising. “People are really so happy to see the bandstand come alive again.”
The Saralaya Sisters on the bandstand
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Triveni Saralaya, who carried out on December 8 along with her sister, Kavitha, says that the sound of classical music within the park takes her again a long time. “There used to be regular performances around 15-20 years ago,” says Triveni, who has herself been a part of musical occasions in Cubbon Park, Lal Bagh and even Bugle Rock Park on many events. “All these parks used to have concerts early in the morning, on Sundays, so walkers would be exposed to live music as they were walking.”
And it isn’t simply concerning the music. Dance photographer Sumukhee Shankar, who attended a dance efficiency, believes that having it outside helps deliver out “the raw energy in the dance,” she says. In her opinion, dancers have a unique vitality once they carry out outside. “They are so fresh, and instead of being in an auditorium with all that (artificial) light, it is only pure sunlight and fresh air,” she says. “As an audience, I felt it was definitely a welcome change.”
The expertise of artwork in a public house is magical as a result of it’s so democratising
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Performance within the park
When Priya and her workforce determined to have famous artists carry out on the bandstand, they knew they didn’t have a price range to pay them. So, they had been a little bit fearful since “we were very conscious that you cannot undermine performers by not rewarding them for their performance,” says Priya. But quickly a realisation dawned. “Much as we respected them, we realised that just like we work pro bono for the city, artists are also open to it,” she says, including that many of those artists had been simply completely satisfied to carry out on the bandstand. “They felt the nostalgia of it, of being part of something bigger than themselves. This generosity allowed us the space we needed.”
Over the final six months, Cubbon Park’s bandstand has hosted quite a few metropolis artists, primarily these from the Indian classical custom, together with Vinita Radhakrishnan, Srijanee Chakraborty, Anirudha Bhat, Yamini Muthanna, and Anuradha Venkatraman. This motion has gained momentum, and Heritage Beku is presently being inundated with requests for bandstand performances, with many artists who’ve already carried out right here referring others to this venue, says Ruam Mukherjee, the curatorial director of Heritage Beku’s Revival Series. She believes that the timing of the performances has contributed to their recognition. “Artists perform in the morning at the bandstand and then head out for their paid engagements and gigs,” she says.
Classical arts can thrive in public areas similar to this one
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Right now, the main target is on the classical arts, “because spaces like this are more suited to them. Also, there are other platforms for popular and film music,” says Ruam, who can be trying to get youthful expertise on the stage since, “in the classical genre, it takes years for a performer to perform in a space like this,” she believes. “So, if their body of work has merit, we definitely try to showcase them.”
A particular house
These performances are open to everybody, together with the park’s many canine residents and guests
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Ruam explains why this specific house is so particular, a sentiment with which most of the performers additionally concur. “It is a 360 °stage and they can see the audience directly,” she says. The many flowers blooming within the park round them at totally different occasions of the yr, just like the pink tabebuias and yellow jacarandas, improve the spectacle. Also, because the stage is open, “the way they use the stage is interesting, especially in terms of dance.”
For Derek Mathias, the band chief of Derek and the Cats, a Bengaluru-based instrumental dance jazz fusion band, one of many only a few Western music performers who’ve been a part of the initiative up to now, taking part in their current tune ‘Cubbon Park’ within the very house that had impressed it was “surreal,” he says. “Performing at 8 in the morning is so refreshing, since you feel the Sunday morning breeze, you hear the birds chirp all around you, and you are surrounded by greenery. It puts you in a very different headspace,” he says, a sentiment shared by Kavitha Saralaya. “The fresh air and lighting are so perfect,” she says. “And the way that bandstand is built, the acoustics sound so good.”
She firmly believes that bringing artwork to public areas enhances tradition. “It is a beautiful ambience and a good way to revive classical music for the general public,” she says, mentioning that, not like in a standard efficiency house crammed with rasikas, it’s not a distinct segment viewers who finally ends up attending these performances. “Many people who come there won’t know an iota of classical music. But when they listen to it in that beautiful setting, something could be triggered in them,” she feels.
Ruam agrees that one of many nicest issues about this initiative has been to see audiences of all ages, from all walks of life, within the metropolis and out of doors it, coming in. Recalling how many individuals who had been visiting Cubbon Park on Sundays, for a run or with their canine, ended up staying for the performances, she additional states, “We have anywhere between 100-150 people in the audience in the bandstand on average, and, for the dance performances, it is always houseful.”
While Heritage Beku has greater plans for Cubbon Park, whether or not it’s going past Indian classical performances or introducing busking within the park, Priya says the main target proper now’s on persevering with the custom that has been established and “building up a good, solid reputation so people know that the Sunday bandstand is here to stay.”
