Yesterday I attended the opening night of the Kalanidhi
International Dance Festival on New Directions in Indian Dance. I'm always interested in the dialogues between
"tradition" and "contemporary" in any genre of dance, and
thought I'd share a few reflections on the pieces I watched yesterday. I had reached
the Harbourfront Centre a little early after teaching a class downtown, and so
I took the opportunity to pick up our pre-ordered tickets (Amber and I were
attending together, and had purchased our tickets online) at the box office. Since
the evening's performance was scheduled to begin at 7:30 pm and it was only
6:30 pm, I decided to go to the Pearl and have a glass of Merlot. I was able to
get a seat near the window, and the view of the lake covered in ice was
spectacular.
The festival's opening evening began with a performance of a
traditional Bharatanatyam varnam by Nivedha Ramalingham, who put on a lovely
performance despite a few glitches in the music recording. I enjoyed her
expressivity and her good form, and remain deeply appreciative of her transition
back into the choreography after the technical glitches with the music
recording.
This was followed by the second performance - SAVITRI-dancing in the forest of death
by Preeti Vasudevan's Thresh from New York City. SAVITRI began with a very striking visual of Vasudevan's legs in
the air. The lighting highlighted this beautifully by leaving the rest of her
body (which was on the floor) in darkness. My attention was caught by the
articulations of her feet in the air, and I got goosebumps when she used
vocalizations as she lowered her feet to the ground. There is something powerful
about the use of human voice without words, and Vasudevan captured that
powerful, indescribable feeling perfectly. The set consisted of ropes suspended from the
ceiling at upstage right- was this reflective of the forest? From my seat in
the balcony, they almost looked like suspended human bones, adding to the somewhat
eerie quality of parts of the piece. At times,
Vasudevan went behind these ropes, sometimes she emerged from between them. I was definitely drawn into the piece. At
moments, it appeared as though the sections were a little disjoint, especially
when the sections involving voice were interspersed with sections which seemed
to evoke movements from the Bharatanatyam lexicon − but this made sense upon reading the programme
later- the sections presented yesterday were excerpts from a longer work.
SAVITRI and its performer-mise-en-scene conversation was perhaps a perfect transition into
the third part of the evening − three short dance pieces presented by Hari
Krishnan's InDance. The first, titled Box, featured two dancers dancing phrases
of movements from the Bharatanatyam
vocabulary in two separate squares of
light. As I read the programme notes now, it appears that the choreographic
vision was inspired by the concept of binaries, such as
"White/Other", "Marginal/Mainstream," and how they are
boxed into clean categorizes . While
watching it, I actually didn't find myself thinking of binaries; I was instead drawn
in by the visual of the boxed pools of light on the floor, and how the dancers
danced within the walls of these. I also enjoyed the unison of the dancers, and the textures of percussion created by the
different instruments played by Morgan Doctor. The most exciting moment for me
was the ending, which featured the two dancers leaping into each other's boxes.
The next was a solo piece, an excerpt from Mea Culpa, which, as the programme notes
state, was inspired by a vintage magazine cover featuring Ted Shawn's 1926
dance The Cosmic Dance of Siva. Featuring Matt Owen as the delightful interpreter,
it was easily the most entertaining piece of the evening. The piece began with
Owen stripping slowly and sensually into fishnets, and then proceeding to
perform exaggerated movements reminiscent of the early 20th century
"oriental dances". Owen danced
in front of a large projected image reminiscent of the Nataraja (not quite
Nataraja, but an Orientalist approximation of it!) Hari Krishnan's programme
notes, crediting Rossini and Gowri Shankar for the music and offering apologies
to both, were also deliciously amusing. I relished this piece, in both its humorous dialogue with the historical Ted
Shawn work and its own package of fun.
The final piece of the evening was Uma, danced by Mesma Belsare. I particularly enjoyed watching her
enter in character onto the stage, with her diva-like pause in the centre while
waiting for the curtain to go up, and her varied gaits throughout the piece.
This is the second Kalanidhi Festival that I've actually
been able to watch since moving to Toronto in 2006. I've always been either away
from Toronto or occupied during the festival days during the other years. I
did, however, get a chance to attend the festival and symposium in 2009, where
I saw the choreographic works which eventually inspired the writing of the
article which turned into my chapter
contribution in the book Geographies of
Dance, ed: Adam Pine, Olaf Kuhlke, Lexington Publishers (2013) (http://www.amazon.ca/Geographies-Dance-Movement-Corporeal-Negotiations/dp/0739171844)
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