Festival Archives

Project By Daksha Sheth Dance Company, Asima Ensemble, and the Sari School

‘Sari: The Unstitched’ is a celebration of all that goes into the creation of this unique garment that remains in constant play with the body, both in stillness and in movement. This show was conceived to rekindle the lost playfulness and individuality of the sari.

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Curated By Mayuri Upadhya

‘Meepao’ is a tribute to all the departed souls, known and unknown, who made lasting contributions to the artists’ lives. Their bequest is a treasure trove of strategies that enable one to find joy in the simplest of things and feel hope in the midst of chaos. This piece imagines performing bodies as entities that can transcend the world of the living and dance in communion with the spirits to celebrate the liminal spaces that separate us somatically. Conceptualised and performed in memoriam, this group performance embodies a desire to whisper to the departed that our memories are their new homes.

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Curated By Geeta Chandran

 ‘Game of Dice’ is a dance production bringing an inventive style of art to the audience. The production draws from Kathakali, with its rigorous, dramatic and vibrant outlook; Chhau, with its high energy, control, and spirit akin to that of the martial arts; and Contemporary dance with its creativity and experimentation. The elements are brought together through the medium of a famous episode from the Mahabharata, the Game of Dice,  which has a fantastic breadth of vision, a riveting plot, a compelling dramatic structure, a cast of complex but real characters, and wisdom that remains relevant for the moral dilemmas of our own age.  

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Curated By Mayuri Upadhya

This novel dance musical, a labour of love brought to you by more than 50 exceptional artists and technicians, is based on the 18 days’ Kurukshetra war in the Mahabharata. Featuring breath-taking visual effects ranging from aerial techniques to magic and levitation, this work captures the heart and soul of Vyasa’s poesis. From the makers of several trendsetting dance productions, this compelling ballet explores all the key events of the war while concocting a heady stylistic mixture of Kathak, Bharatanatyam, Kalari Payattu, Yakshagana and other forms.

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Curated By Mayuri Upadhya

‘Vistar’ offers an experience of the traditional form of Odissi with a contemporary sensibility. It explores the possibilities that come to life when weaving the major strands of classical music, poetry and rhythm with modern stagecraft, lighting and multimedia.

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Curated By Geeta Chandran

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Curated By Mayuri Upadhya

Set in the margam format of Bharatnatyam, ‘Abha’ work draws inspiration from Devdutt Pattanaik’s Sita which is a compilation of the numerous regional variations of the Ramayana across India. ‘Taulanika mimamse’ or a holistic perspective has been the base of our understanding of spirituality in India: it is an approach which looks at any story or situation from various perspectives and tries to unearth what this story has to offer. It is an endeavour to understand the characters’ actions in the context of their identity and time and the conceptualisation of ‘Abha’ is largely rooted in this perspectival framework. 

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Curated By Geeta Chandran

Andal’s is a remarkable life, saturated with emotion, passion, and poetry, lived over 1000 years ago, when women were forbidden the landscapes of devotion and personal worship. The Bhakti saint’s life was then an affront and a challenge, and representations of her legacy have been seen, heard, and experienced by generations of artists and philosophers. Andal remains an enigma and a beloved icon in the Tamil imagination. In ‘Naachiyar Next’, globally acclaimed choreographer Dr Anita Ratnam revisits her 2013 classic production ‘Naachiyar’ with an ensemble of 18 artists. She returns to Andal’s allure with this Bharatnatyam performance, celebrating Andal, who is a continuing flashpoint for female desire, personal bhakti, and a daring figure of transgression across borders of conformity and decorum.

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Curated By Mayuri Upadhya

‘On the Move’ is a celebration of the ethos of street dancing. For this performance, Hip-Hop, popping and locking, whacking, break, krump, b-boying and contouring are styles that will come together in a cypher accompanied by a beat boxer and a DJ. The third floor of a multi-level car park is chosen as the location, in an attempt to draw the audience into a more unique and intimate experience.  

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Curated By Mayuri Upadhya

Artist and choreographer Priyabrata Panigrahi sees the bodies in this performance as one fabric, as integrated and dynamic elements of a breathing topography. One cloud, one swarm of harmonised yet competing energies. The challenge is to use the simplest mechanics to express, through bodies that listen to each other. Creating geometry and, at the same time, working with the anatomy and physics of flesh and bones. The topography moves. It maps itself in space. It reaches far beyond its geographical limitations and it leaves traces. It reminds you why dance and poetry are so necessary for the human experience, particularly at a time of global and planetary crisis, violence, separation and anarchy.

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Curated By Mayuri Upadhya

Shunya is a kaleidoscopic journey that starts with zero and takes the audience  through the various stages of creation, existence and destruction only to come back  to zero. With a strong focus on Mother Earth as a living being interwoven with personal stories, the piece will thread through the journey of the individual as well as the collective. Darkness and light, life and death, love and anger, pain and joy, war and peace, strong and weak, power and submission – all begin and end at zero.

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Curated By Mayuri Upadhya

In her new work, ‘Cycle of Love’, Latha Srinivasa explores the ups and downs of a relationship, the rock bottoms and the crescendos. Her strong contemporary movement vocabulary is embellished by her foothold in Bharatnatyam and Abhinaya, taking us on a rollercoaster ride. Interspersed with spoken word, the performance explores the primordial balance between illusion and reality.

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Curated By Mayuri Upadhya

This piece is based on the difference types of senses in the human body, how we utilize these different senses with varied interpretations, and how these senses creates bonds between living and non living things with every emotion and sensation. Promita Karfa uses hearing, touch, sight, taste, smell with the elements of our universe, but from a unique perspective.

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Curated By Mayuri Upadhya

Entheos, derived from Greek, translates as full of God, or God is within yourself. The Greeks

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Curated By Mayuri Upadhya

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Project By Akanksha Kadam and Savitri Medhatul

During this workshop the participants will get to interact with the artist as well as learn steps choreography of a Lavani song. This workshop will help the participants explore, understand and appreciate the aesthetics of the Lavani performance.

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Project By Santosh Nair, Neha Sharma & Nalini Sharma Sadhya Group

This workshop will take participants through body conditioning as per the requirements of both Mayurbhanj Chhau & Contemporary Dance, some basic techniques of the forms, routines developing from various movements, improvisation and composition, etc.

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Curated By Geeta Chandran

Panchabhutam, or the auspicious five elements, is a Mohiniyattam thematic presentation in a recital format. It is woven around the theme of the five elements (air, water, fire, earth and space) that constitute the entire process of creation, and their connection to every living creature.

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