This writer still remembers reading William Shakespeare’s Hamlet according to the beats of its iambic pentameter when memorising lines in college. Members of the production team from Eurythmy India would have approached it differently. The company will take to the stage today to present scenes from another of the bard’s famous works, King Lear, in a unique performance, ‘Love, And Be Silent’ that blends Indian musical forms with the European practice of eurythmy.

“Eurythmy actually began as a pedagogical teaching tool invented by Rudolf Steiner,” shares Preeti Birla, vice president of the Eurythmy Society of Performing Arts. An eurythmist herself, Birla is taking on the role of King Lear’s Fool in the production. “The performance is different from Indian classical forms. Where mudra or abhinaya [expression] is key to Indian dance and theatrical arts, you embody and make visible speech and music in eurythmy,” she explains.