Roysten Abel’s ‘A 100 charmers’ to be staged in Bengaluru on May 4

Roysten Abel’s ‘A 100 charmers’ to be staged in Bengaluru on May 4

India has always been associated with snake charmers and the great Indian rope trick. We hardly see these acts on our streets anymore. “These traditional arts are dying in India,” says Roysten Abel, who is bringing his musical production, A 100 snake charmers, to Bengaluru. “We are so much more than snake charmers and rope tricks.”

There will be no snakes on stage, Roysten assures. “Else people will be petrified. In fact, when we were passing through Milan with the same production, the immigration was curious about who the performers were. Once I told them snake charmers, they almost sent us back!”

The musical will feature over a 100 snake charmers who will perform as an orchestra, which will be conducted by Roysten, who has been actively propagating folk arts and music through his theatrical productions for years.

The event will include solo and group performances where the ensemble will use the been (Indian pipes) to present traditional tunes, Scottish bagpipe melodies and Bollywood tunes. “The sound is just going to be fascinating as 100 beens will be played together,” says Roysten, who has conceptualized and directed it.

A 100 Charmers, Roysten says was inspired by his collaboration with Bahar Dutt. “She has an NGO Jeevika Foundation in Delhi and their tagline is ‘Friends of Snakes’. She wanted to take care of snakes and also break the misconception that the snakes were harmed by the snake charmers. This fallacy caused snake charmers performing on the streets of India to be banned.”

Bahar, Roysten said, was looking for an alternative livelihood for snake charmers. “With their vast knowledge of snakes, snake charmers were helping with cases of snake bites, antidotes etc. Also, since they had this music, she asked me if we could do something with them through theatre. I had worked with a few snake charmers and told her we had to something larger, so let’s look at a 100 snake charmers together on stage.”

Roysten’s next task was to find 100 traditional snake charmers. “I knew one charmer, and then gradually the number grew. As the word spread, around 500 charmers from across north India connected with us.”