Vijay Iyer, Prashant Bhargava

Radhe Radhe: Rites of Holi is a film by Prashant Bhargava with a score by the composer and pianist Vijay Iyer, conceived for the centenary of Stravinsky's The Rite of Spring. Instead of the pagan Russia of the ballet, it turns to another rite of spring, the Hindu festival of Holi. Holi celebrates the love of Krishna and Radha with crowds, dancing and clouds of coloured powder, and here film and music form one work.

Carolina Performing Arts commissioned it for The Rite of Spring at 100 at the University of North Carolina, and it premiered at Memorial Hall, Chapel Hill, on 26 March 2013. Bhargava had filmed the eight days of Holi in Mathura, the mythic birthplace of Krishna, in March 2012, with Craig Marsden as director of photography. Staged scenes with the actress Anna George as Radha were added later. The score is played by the International Contemporary Ensemble under Adam Sliwinski, with Iyer on piano and electronics, Cory Smythe on second piano and Tyshawn Sorey on drums and percussion. It was recorded at Memorial Hall and in Brooklyn, mixed at Avatar Studios, and produced by Manfred Eicher and Iyer.

The work falls into two parts, Adoration and Transcendence, each of six sections with titles such as Dawn, Spring Fever, Intoxication and Purging Rites. Adoration moves from the quiet of the town and the river towards the dancing crowds, and the ensemble grows with them, flutes and brass answering each other as the powder fills the air. Transcendence turns to the imagined Radha, filmed in close-up, with a trumpet line over her face and the music thinning as the images slow. Iyer draws at times on the rhythms and chants of the festival, and the writing moves between driving, foreboding passages and others that are almost silent.

Howard Reich in the Chicago Tribune wrote that the two artists approached Stravinsky "with precisely the innovative spirit that made 'Rite' a cultural landmark a century ago". For John Watson in Jazz Camera the music conjures "soundscapes of immense beauty and furious rhythms". It was Bhargava's last film: he died in New York in May 2015, aged 42.

DVD, ECM 5507, released on 7 November 2014: 16:9 NTSC picture, Dolby Digital 2.0 sound, region-free, total running time 53:34 including an 18-minute making-of documentary directed by Ross Karre.