Tales of a Mermaid

She decided to adapt these mermaid legends and choreograph a performance that not only explored the duality of beauty and monstrosity but also gave viewers something to think about. Devised in 2008 as a multimedia stage performance,Ningyo premiered on February 2 at Mumbai’s National Centre for Performing Arts. It showcases the dancing skills of Japanese artiste Chiharu Mimaya,coupled with music rendered by a dancer and videos projected on a wide screen. Seiler says,“It’s a free adaptation of the mermaid legends. Ningyo does not chronologically tell the story of these half-human,half-animal creatures. Different legends from the East to West and from antiquity to present-day are scattered together. The structure of the piece is a performative process that questions the duality of this aquatic creature.”

After conducting an extensive research about the legends and ideating the stage design,Seiler collaborated with Mamiya and another Japanese artiste YoungSoon Cho Jaquet to devise this piece. “We rehearsed for 10 weeks in a theatre-like space where we could try out projections and light from the first day itself.” Since the trio has a contemporary dance background and is trained in yoga,it was easy for them to exchange ideas and improvise the performance constantly. However,even today after having several shows at Switzerland,Europe and South Africa,they still improvise. “The quality of movement,the timing and the space is set,but the actual movement are invented on the spot during the performance.”

The performance starts off with Ningyo (Mamiya ) playing with the audience’s perception. The stage is submerged in darkness and slowly, a being appears. The form does not match that of the mermaid we know. She is neither graceful nor seductive. Then she emerges out of her natural environment,the water body. At first,the stereotype of ideal beauty is forgotten and a rarer or lesser-known aspect about mermaids is told. In certain legends they are described as ugly,repulsive monsters living in the unexplored,scary depths of the sea. The ambiguity of water,sometimes associated with destruction and sometimes with regeneration,also influences Ningyo’s direction. Thus the water’s duality evolves alongside the mermaid’s duality and attracts,disgusts and terrifies the audience on different occasions.

The diverse use of different forms of media add another dimension to the performance according to Seiler. She explains,“The video projections create atmospheres that explode the conventional space of a theatre stage. The dancer’s image is multiplied several times through the video and the water’s surface,which also serves as a tool for the projections,a multiple mirror. In one scene,the dancer plays with her shadow on the back wall,she dissolves and then escapes from it. Later she is the captive of an image projected on the ceiling,from which she flies away using a visual effect created by video.”

She elaborates that dance and the video have equal importance in Ningyo. “These two expressive mediums when they come together underline the mermaid’s dual personality. Ambiguities and dualisms are revealed and alluded to. The stage direction also integrates opposites like black and white,visible and invisible,singular and plural,animal and man,beauty and monstrosity and shows the proximity of limits between attraction and repulsion.”

Apart from the improvisations,a vital change has also been made in Ningyo that was also performed at Bengaluru last week. While in the earlier performances,Mimaya was seen in the nude,keeping the Indian sensibilities in mind,here she wore a bodysuit. Seiler also adds that a major challenge was to maintain the body’s temperature. “The water that is on stage was probably the biggest challenge especially for the dancer. It gets quickly cold and the body is not able to produce movement like it’s used to.”

Seiler is happy with the response that Ningyo has received and feels that the audience is able to connect with it as it’s a contemporary piece. Quiz her if the dance piece has any message and she replies,“I wanted to talk about an ancient character. But I don’t have any message. There are many possibilities to read a performance like Ningyo and I’d like to invite each spectator to interpret the piece individually.”

rinky.kumar@expressindia.com