Strictly Come Dancing

The roster of performers boasts several well-known names — the Aditi Mangaldas Dance Company,Rajyashree Ramamurthi and Navtej Singh Johar from India as well as foreign dancers likes Fabian Barba and Chris Lechner. In turn,the choreographies tackle subjects like Manipur’s quiet resistance to AFSPA in the form of Irom Sharmila in Ramamurthi’s In the Light of Irom Sharmila,the scope of emotions in Padmini Chettur Dance Company’s Pushed and an attempt to touch the intangible in Mangaldas’ Timeless.

Barba brings alive the works of expressionist German dancer Mary Wigman in his 60-minute-long production called A Mary Wigman Dance Evening,creating a tension between his reconstruction and her original,while Johar gets inspired by British writer and Nobel Prize winner Doris Lessing in his piece called Grey is also a Colour. “The work explores how people use their stance to set social boundaries. The rich,for instance,would stand and talk in a certain way to set themselves apart or intimidate others. And then,human entanglements take over as these borders are either surreptitiously crossed or collapse by themselves,” says Johar,adding that he had initially created Grey is also a Colour for the Commonwealth Games. Johar,an exponent in Bharatanatyam,besides theatre and yoga,draws on the vocabulary of these forms. “For many people,including several classical dancers,contemporary dance is the Other. It is said to have the stigma of being an import from the West,but most contemporary dancers in India have been trained in the classical arts and draw their directions from these as they explore new concerns,” says Lall. She stresses on the presence of seminars and discussions at the festival to demystify the performances. “Meeting the artists provide opportunities to understand their work and their evolution,” she says. The festival ends on November 13. For details,contact: 39895050

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