Date for Entry: (Friday 1st – Saturday 2nd November 2019)
Actual Date of Online Entry: (Tuesday 22nd March 2022)
Dear Diary,
The dance department at DCFA had
their “Festival of Movement” concert. It was a two-day event from seven in the
night. Everything was done twice on both nights. The Indian Classical Ensemble
was supposed to perform our piece of “Aigiri Nandini” but I saw on the program
that they had labeled the piece as “Ardhannarishvara”.
Only on Saturday night, I was
able to go into one of the dance studios to see them dance to the composition I
had done called “Dance of Nature”. In one of the dance rehearsals, I got to
meet Ms. Paul who was the teacher for the class I did the music for. She had
realized who I was when I gave her a copy of the “Aigiri Nandini” that I had
done for the Ensemble. Also, another group I am playing music with for another
of her classes. We were given an extra assignment as an option to write
something for the dancers and I did it. Since I was the only person to complete
the full song, it was taken immediately. There was one student attempting music
for the earth dance.
The coordinator Mrs. Olivier did
not want us to enter. I snuck in to hear the music of my own composition
that night. I was not pleased with the ‘collage’ effect they did with recorded
dances. It felt like all the hard work was in vain because I had sat down and
calculated each step. The others in the Indian Classical Ensemble found the
crowd took forever to enter the room so they left and went back downstairs
before I got in.
In composition class, Mr. Sharma
would have said almost the same when he asked me how I found it to be. I was
congratulated by Mr. Reid when he met me in school in the week leading up to
the event. He said he had heard the composition I did. As I chose to ignore the
visual and look down to the ground, I took in the sound. For me, it sounded
like there was too much bowl gong in use. I did some adjustments to the piece
over some time. This was a good experience hearing the piece on a loudspeaker
for the first time.
The Indian classical ensemble performance was done after the Intermission. I met Mr. Sharma and Miss Karen on Saturday night after entering the dance studio and some of the others from the composition. Our performance was done first after the intermission. It did sound a bit weird as Miss Priyanka was telling Miss Paul after the first night. I agreed. The rest of the show went well on both nights. Mr. Maharaj was not there. I think he was out of the country for that weekend.
Link(s):
- "Festival of Movement" - Programme.
- "Aigiri Nandini" - 'Score Guide' (Final).
- Ms. Mahadeo's Lyrics (Photographs).
- "Aigiri Nandini" - Audio Recording with Score.
- "Dance of Nature" - Score.
- "Dance of Nature" - Video Recording.
Daryl Zion M. Ali
