Conductor Daevo Kahn directs the musicians of ‘The Manganiyar Seduction.’

Never have I witnessed a Kennedy Center audience leaping to its feet as quickly as after Saturday evening’s fantastic staging of The Manganiyar Seduction. The production introduced a largely uninitiated audience to a powerful experience that was so much more than seductive or enticing. The haunting melodies and driving rhythms were breathtaking and exhilarating, the highlight of the highly successful maximum INDIA festival’s concluding weekend.

The show begins with an impressive three-story tall array of 36 red-curtained cubicles, each framed with a set of darkened light bulbs. On the “ground floor,” one square is illuminated and a sinuous melody begins on the kamancha. A voice joins in, then another, and yet another. The music unfurls with rhythms from dhols and dholaks, the gentle string sound of the sarangi, soaring melodies from pungis and algozas, and even the twang of the morsing. At the center of the 80-minute extravaganza stands Daevo Kahn. Part dancer, part conductor whose castanet-like karthals replace the westerner’s baton, he glides his way back forth across the stage, cuing entrances, interacting with the audience and managing the joyful noise.