Stunning Manganiyar Seduction Returns to White Light Festival

The Manganiyar Seduction Photo Credit Roysten Abel

This year’s White Light Festival features an abundance of international jewels, from Japan, Ireland, and Australia, just to name a few performance roots, including our own American genius musician, composer, and Artistic Director of Jazz at Lincoln Center Wynton Marsalis who will be presenting the exquisite Abyssinian Mass with the Jazz at Lincoln Center Orchestra and Chorale Le Chateau.

I began my introduction to the festival by seeing the Manganiyar Seduction. I cannot imagine a better name for Roysten Abel’s dazzling work. For 75 minutes the audience was treated to a majestic display of nimble-fingered string and drum musicians convoying with superlative vocals. The serenade builds hypnotically taking the audience away into a gradual hypnotic embrace in which about 40 mustached men energetically secure the spellbound listeners. The set is designed to surprise and display each jewel that appears. Rows of compartments draped in red velvet curtains and glittering lights have a singular effect and each framed box housing a performer appears when their moment in the music is introduced. The show opened with the sound of a khamacha (an Indian string instrument), then a gradual cascade of performers appeared dressed in long white tunics with mostly multi- colored turbans as they sat cross legged or on their knees. According to Abel the poetry…