Songs of the Bulbul - Perth Festival

Reviewed by Paul Treasure

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Bulbul is the Persian word for the bird that we would call the nightingale. A bird that traditionally has the sweetest song of all the songbirds, but also the most tragic and horrifying stories as to how a captive nightingale is made to sing. Songs of the Bulbul is a one man dance theatre piece that follows the life of a single nightingale. As the lights dim we are given a brief, but detailed and coldly clinical, rundown of the process it takes to make a caged Bulbul sing. This description provides the necessary context for what we are about to witness.

The show opens on a dimly lit stage. To the rear of the stage we can just make out a white shape. Non-descript at first, the shape starts to bulge and pulse, pushing against its white covering, until finally the dancer, Aakash Odedra, bursts forth from his shell and emerges into the light. He is dressed all in white. White pants with a white long-sleeved jacket and a full skirt. That is utilised to absolute precision and perfection. Kanika Thakor’s design allows the dancer to give the impression of flight, it becomes as much a character as Odedra himself.

Having burst forth from his shell, Odedra joyfully and gracefully dances around the stage, twirling and leaping, sometimes appearing to hang in the air like an actual bird. Rose petals drift slowly down from the flies, their rich red playing off beautifully against the crisp white of the costume. The combination of the two colours make a stunningly beautiful stage picture. Then suddenly there is a loud bang as three wooden bars that have been suspended from the flies crash down to meet the stage. The trap has been sprung, the Bulbul is caught, and now the process of domestication begins.

Broken up into a series of scenes, Odedra then takes us through the various stages of the Bulbul’s captivity, portraying with agonising realness the pain and terror of the bird. With this he is masterfully partnered by lighting designer Fabiana Picioli. The design aiding and highlighting what is happening on stage. Conveying the dimness that will now dominate the rest of the Bulbul’s life. At times the lighting retreats to little more than one or two beams of light picking the dancer out in the darkness, or occasionally, and most brilliantly, a beam of light where the dancer is not, providing a glimmer of hope and the chance of escape that is always, agonisingly, just out of the bird’s reach. At one point Odedra ends up on his knees at the front of the stage, pulls his hands up to his eyes and literally screams. It has happened. The Bulbul has been deliberately blinded. Silence! At this point a handful of audience members feebly attempted to initiate a round of applause, but it quickly sputtered away. The vast majority of the audience remained silent, transfixed and traumatised by what had just occurred in front of them. Applause at this point would have seemed trivial and unnecessary. After what seemed like an eternity of quiet stillness, that must have lasted mere seconds, Picioli’s lighting goes haywire, sometimes strobing, sometimes shards of light as the Bulbul reaches the peak of his agony and desperation.

The accepted lore of a captured nightingale is that they sing at their sweetest and most melancholy when they have given up any remaining hope and are preparing for death. To the left of the stage, Set Designer Emanuele Salamanca has placed hundreds of handmade glass candles of various sizes in a large crescent shaped configuration. Odedra then performs what an really only be described as a psa-de-deux with the candles as the respond and react to the choreography. It is as though the light from the candles take on the character of the Bulbul’s life force as it starts to ebb and flow. At some point Odedra has put on two handheld lights on each of his palms, and the lights dances and jumps from one section of candles to another, sweeping in waves, then jumping into his hands, the being thrown to another section of the candles, or jugglng between his hands. Eventually there is no light onstage apart from one of the handheld lights, which slowly starts rising into the ceiling. But it doesn’t rise smoothly, and jumps and jerks as it rises, like a wounded bird trying to fly, which is, of course, exactly what it is. While the light disappears into the flies, Odedra has removed his jacket and skirt. Dressed only in his white pants, he dances one more time with a large translucent veil, blowing and fluttering around him thanks to an offstage wind machine, until finally that veil too flies away. The Bulbul is no more.

I am certainly no expert in Indian Classical Dance styles, and can make no comment about the precision or technicality of Odedra’s performance, or Rani Khanam’s choreography. But I can talk about their artistry, and this was a gut-wrenching piece of dance, wringing every last piece of emotion out of the audience after the ride they had been taken on. This is being billed as a one person show, and while Odedra gives a powerhouse performance as the only person physically onstage, this downplays the huge collaboration involved. From Rushil Ranjan’s amazing sufi inspired score,to the lights, set, choreography, and costuming, everything comes together to form one masterful, beautiful and agonising synchronous whole, that will last in the memories of those who were lucky enough to be in attendance for a very long time.

Image Credit: Anglea Grabowska

Reviewer Note: Tickets for this review were provided by Perth Festival