The gates to the Mehrangarh fort open just as an inky blue darkness begins to spread across a sky dotted with grey clouds and dark, noisy birds you can’t quite identify yet. Usually, this is when the fort sleeps, free of tourists and their cameras. Today, evening sets in with a bit of a scramble for parking, a growing queue outside the makeshift ticketing tent, and half murmured conversations. The first day of the Jodhpur Flamenco and Gypsy Festival 2015 has begun.
There are still a few minutes to seven, though, and the air is heavy with snatches of lingering silence. Fading sunlight plays with shadows on the fort’s walls, tracing ancient patterns carved on stone centuries ago. It’s an imposing structure. Set against a fast darkening sky, its beauty and vastness are almost overwhelming. And then, just before the last drops of sunlight fade, the lights come on. Bright yellow electric bulbs wink from tiny windows in the turrets of the 500-year old fort, at once incongruous and fitting; the atmosphere changes. At first, it’s subtle; half audible strains of melody blowing in with the wind. Slowly, though, as you walk towards Moti Mahal, the largest period room in Mehrangarh, it grows surer, stronger. The corridor opens into an alcove, fenced in by breathtakingly beautiful, intricately detailed balconies, temporarily playing home to countless resting pigeons. The music is loud now, forceful and strong. “Sounds of the Sand” have begun their performance. The brochure tells you that they are Rajasthani musicians from the Manganiyar community, world renowned for their sound. Their music tells you that they belong to the sun and the sand. Their folk songs are earthy, and they play to an assortment of people, almost all of them already half immersed, feet tapping and heads nodding with the rhythm.
It is perhaps this first act that sets the tone for the festival. When the music stops, you can hear conversations in different languages; see different colours and clothes and faces. But when the music starts, the differences almost completely disappear, and the rhythm strings everyone along the same way. They clap and cheer and sing along in harmony, a kind of live action mirror of the festival and its spirit.
It is, after all, this fusion, this mingling of sounds that the JFGF, jointly organised by the Mehrangarh Museum Trust and CRN Productions, aims to achieve. It brings together not just gypsy music from different corners of the world, but other, diverse and creative disciplines too. The main stage, awash with lights and crowded with instruments, stands surrounded by an ancient wall mounted with giant blown up prints of contemporary photographer Rohit Chawla’s collection, Wanderlust. Arresting, weather beaten face of the Rabaris, a pastoral nomadic community of Rajasthan, stare out from each photograph. In one corner of the large ground, artist Carmen Galofre stands in front of her easel, painting the scene on the stage with quick, expert strokes.
And then there is the stage itself. It sees three nights of endlessly beautiful music, created by the fusing and celebrating differences—Vocalist Naike Ponce, violinist Victor Guadiana, drummer Israel Varela, pianist Chano Dominguez, Turkish Gypsy singer and guitarist Berk Gurman, percussionist Gurkan Ozkan, violinist Serdar Pazarcioglu, singer Onur Gugul and clarinet exponent Alaattin Kabaci, bassist Javier Colina, flamenco player El Bola, singer El Indio, percussionist Pablo Dominguez, bassist Javier Colina— the list of international performers, from Spain, Turkey, Germany and other countries, seems almost endless. Their music combines with that of the Indian performers— the Rajasthan Roots, Desert String, Sounds of the Sand— creating something completely new and unexplored, a sound that retains its original, gypsy heritage, but also embraces a richer, more contemporary identity. The ease with which the music, ostensibly from different and remote parts of the world, comes together, gives a kind of validity to the theory that gypsies, now settled in different parts of the world, migrated from Rajasthan in the 12 century. They moved across West Asia and Europe and Spain, and while their culture changes and morphed, the need to express themselves through music, and their basic dance moves, musical notes and rhythm retained similarities. Today, when they come back to Rajasthan and perform with the gypsy artists here, it feels a little like coming home.
It is, though, the dancers, that give a physical shape to this thought. Flamenco practitioners Daniel Navarro and Karen Lugo, along with Rajasthan’s Kalbeliya dancers, perform to the shifting, moving rhythm, giving an almost tangible feeling to the music. Lugo and Navarro are captivating, as their bodies wrap themselves around the music and fit right into the contours, giving the impression that you can both see and hear the music. The collaborations between the dancers is fascinating, and Lugo matches Kalbeliya dancer Asha Sapera move for move, each twist and turn and swish of their colourful costumes slightly different on the outside, but identical in its essence.
On the first day, it rains; first gentle drops and then a roaring, thrashing shower that shuts down the stage. It fails, though, to shut down the festival. The party moves to Moti Mahal, and people continue to sit and listen, their rain drenched bodies swaying to the music— a testimony to its power. The other two nights remain balmy; with clear skies and moonlight that illuminates the fort’s turrets. When the festival ends, culminating in one big blowout collaboration between every artist invited to the festival, it feels almost like a tribute to Mehrangarh itself.
The JFGF is still fairly new, only in its second year. Its managing and artistic director, Roberto Nieddu, has a few moments to breathe after the last performance, and he shares his vision for the years ahead. “Every year, we need to do something different— new music, new instruments, and new artists.” He worries about the funding, admitting that it is difficult to find sponsors.
Nieddu, who heads CRN Productions, also talks about the seeds of the festival being planted back in 2008, when a concert at the Jodhpur RIFF he put together fusing Rajasthani and old Italian music prompted another one between Spanish and Rajasthani gypsy music and dance. Today, the JFGF underlines the stark and remarkable similarities between the two traditions, working towards promoting and preserving both. “I hope, later on, to put together a Centre of Study that can document and archive gypsy culture in India.” This is a distant dream, though, admits Nieddu, whose first and prime objective is to concentrate of the JFGF. “Right now, the funds are low, and it’s by the grace of the participants who accept much less payment than they otherwise get to come and perform here. But they come here and showcase something beautiful, and I want to pay them well. Nieddu adds that the Indian artists remain both enthusiastic and completely dedicated to the cause. “They are hungry to perform. There are such few platforms for them today. It is this reason why Nieddu prefers to call younger, lesser recognised Rajasthani artists. “The more famous ones find opportunities. It is the younger ones I want to make famous. They deserve it.” The USP of the festival, he says, is that it creates completely new music. “The bands don’t just come and play pre-existing songs. They come here weeks before the festival, and the artists sit together, rehearse for hours and create new, interesting music. You come here and leave with the feeling that you’ve witnessed something unique.”
Slowly, but surely, JGFG hopes to make its mark stronger. Of course, with one of the country’s most beautiful architectural marvels as its venue, and some of the most raw, powerful music as its USP, it’s already on the right path.
