On March 3, 2020, SLCE hosted the biggest, and most spectacular university-wide event so far, The Manganiyar Seduction. It witnessed an overwhelming response with over 2,500 spectators comprising students, faculty, and staff of the University, along with several guests from Delhi, surrounding universities and dignitaries visiting from abroad. Special guests for the evening were Justice Matthew F. Cooper, Justice, Supreme Court, New York County & his partner, Ms. Melissa Cooper.
About the performance
The Manganiyar Seduction was created in 2006 to open the Delhi Film Festival, and since then it has been performed far and wide. The acclaimed Indian theatre director Roysten Abel brings together in a dazzling union 43 musicians from the deserts of Rajasthan and frames their music in a truly mesmerising setting inspired by the visual seduction of Amsterdam's red light district and the spectacular Hawa Mahal to create a magical box containing 36 red-curtained cubicles arranged in four horizontal rows one on top of the other.
The Manganiyar Seduction has been performed close to 400 times, across 32 countries and at festivals in Delhi, Mumbai, Rome, Salzburg, Hyderabad, Zagreb, Vienna, Krakow, Lyon, Amsterdam, Dublin, Sydney, London, Singapore, New York, Perth, Auckland, Washington DC, Abu Dhabi, Dusseldorf, Paris, Melbourne, Hong Kong etc.
About the performers and their music
The Manganiyars are a caste of Muslim musicians who are predominantly settled in the districts of Jaisalmer, Barmer and Jodhpur in the heart of the Thar desert. They traditionally performed for the kings but over the years their patrons have shifted from to anyone who could give them a meal. It was in the 70’s that the ethnomusicologist, the late Komal Kothari, discovered them and gave them a new life in contemporary times.
Their repertoire includes ballads about the kings and Sufi poems written by various mystics. They also have songs for various occasions like birth, marriage, feasts etc. Even though they are classified as folk musicians their traditional music is embedded in the classical, clearly indicating the roots of classical music in India. It is the rawness of the folk and the complexity of Hindustani music that makes their music so special.
Starting with a lonely wail and drone played on a throaty bowed kamancheh, the music erupts through waves of melismatic singing, shimmering bowed sarangi, fluttering murli, pulsating dhols, a beautiful twangy marching and other Indian instruments, rising to powerful climaxes before subsiding to re-build. The artists are dressed in a dhoti- kurta along with a traditional Rajasthani safa (headgear).