All the way from Manipur

Intimacy created between man and nature, as depicted by the dancers

The audience was awe-struck by the creative force shown by the dancers, when a group of them were mistaken for wax dolls covered with shining material, imaged like statues on stage. The play successfully portrayed the age-old culture of the country, through its colourful costumes, music, and compositions, not to mention the poetic ambiguity created by the lights and set.

The play portrayed the cycle of seasons, creating an intimacy between life and nature. The six seasons of the country were displayed graphically through the play. These yearly cycles made an impact not only on the human psyche, animals and the birds, but also the other elements building up the nature like insects, flora and fauna. The poetic images created by the director, Ratan Thiyam, were insightful, graphic and extremely powerful.

According to the director himself, this is not a conventional play as such, where Kalidasa defines each season as descriptively as possible. The visual interpretation made to meet each episode was definitely a challenge, since each episode was so poetically complete. The performances underlined the fact that all human energy is actually derived from nature. Man is seen losing all his power, energy, beauty, love and the inner talents once he moves away from the bountiful nature and begins to isolate himself. However, no matter how hard he tries, in simple expression, he does end up living in a contemporary world and once again reunites with the substances of nature surrounding him.