‘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.
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.
‘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.
‘Rumiyana’ is a musical puppet theatre performance based on the works of the great Sufi mystic, poet, and philosopher Mevlana Jalaluddin Rumi, whose influence transcends all conceivable borders and unites people across categories of race, nationality, and gender. The Masnavi never gets old—indeed, its tales of love shine with renewed vigour each time we visit the poem.
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.
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.
‘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.
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.
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.
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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