In the 1989 edition, Oriente Occidente hosted a unique 'King Lear' in Kathakali version from India. The troupe belonged to Kalamandalam, one of the country's largest governmental cultural institutions. Manipuri's Sankirtana, this year's guest of the festival, is also a form of dance theatre originating in India. But unlike Kathakali, it is almost unknown in the West. Its land of origin lies on the eastern borders of the Indian subcontinent, an area where the pre-Hindu tradition of the peoples of Tibet, Burma and Siam is still very much alive.
Manipuri means 'land of the gem'. The name, besides being in itself significant of the beauty of the area, refers to the mythological tale of the divine serpent king, lord of the underworld, who illuminated the valley with the light from the jewel with which his hood was adorned.
The Sankirtana is a community and devotional chant that is traced back to the 15th century A.D., coinciding with the arrival of the Bengal peoples in Manipuri. With the passing of time, the song was added to the danced scenic action and the musical accompaniment performed with percussion instruments by the dancers themselves.
According to Indian tradition, the gods are the inventors of dance. In the Natya Sastra, the bi-millennial text of oriental theatre, we read that the creator of the dance was Brahama, helped by Shiva and Parvati and by Vichnou and Vicvakama. The god Shiva himself is called Nataraja, king of the dancers. Sacred therefore by birth is dance and sacred every activity connected with it. The performance is consequently experienced as a 'ritual', as a 'festival' in which to recover the ancient contact with the gods.
Manipuri dances, called 'Cholom', are divided into two basic types: 'Poong' and 'Kartal'. In the first, more acrobatic and well-known, the dancers have two-sided drums hanging from their necks. In the second, less virtuosic and more measured, the bare-chested dancers wear large white turbans and play metal cymbals. The dance in Manipuri is not pantomimic. Rather, from the descriptions it seems to belong to the 'non-imitative' category mentioned by Sachs. The underlying theme, of a histrico-erotic character, deals with the love between Kridhna, the Indian god incarnation of Visnu, and Radha, the shepherdess companion of Krishna.
