Having had experienced a good deal of Contemporary dance performances on the first day and having listened to Eddie Nixon talk about his work at The Place, London, i had a fair idea of what to expect on the second day.
Contemporary dance performances can, in short, be said to be brave and thinking experimentation with movements by dancers who have a certain cross domain training and are itching to explore.
On Day 2 many performances made me wonder of dancers failed to see where and when to end their work. Some performances seemed to stray a bit too long after when it should have ended. And many performances seemed have borrowed their dance vocabulary from some common bank, for many movements seemed repeated and highly patronised.
Viewing a Performance under the high, thatched, sloping roofs of Kalakshetra brings it own added side kicks. You get to see the occassional butterfly surreptitiously invading the stage and blessing the dancer like a stray golden hued drifting confetti. There was this occassonal thunder that clapped exactly at the end of a performance, and also the constant thudding of the down pour that played spoil sport on many a carefully designed sound experience. And on this lovely evening it was a luxury to have the waves fanning the breeze in across the shore.
The evening started with Abilash Ningappa's " architect of self destruction' . The performance started with wild jerking movements to music, and grew into a group movement and ended in conflict and chaos. The group Movement sequence reminded me of a sequnce in last evening's performance in Riya Mandal. Though, today's version was little chaotic.
Strange fruit by Satakshi Nandy was a brave experimentation exploring the exploitation of the female body. The performer dared and challenged many a boundary and came through glorious in doing great justice to her chosen concept. the last shot was sudden could have shocked many in the audience.
Parallel intersections by Sahiba Singh was a permutation combination of 2 men and 3 women performers each taking turns to grab and hold the other in a tight lock break and find a new hold. The performance set some new standard for the festival in terms of depiction of physical relationships.
'To see ' by Anuradha Venkatraman, lit the lamp for the evening. the performance started of with a natarja and a bakasura depiction and a conflict between good and bad. it was beautiful to see the Nataaja pose slowly transform into a ' thalaiyaati bommai' . The performance was accompanied by some beautiful rhythimic beats from thappu, urumi and a drum.
Rush hour by Manju Sharma was a depiction of the rush in a metro- the struggle for space, the adaptations to the resource cruch etc.
Mindscapes by Anish Poli nad interesting use of video projections on stage alongside the performance.
Conveyor belt by Mirra Arun was the winner of this evening, for me, for the soulful effort the performer had let loose on stage, for the lovely conception of the idea and for executing it with great dexterity. It was a great deal of pain evident and a massive effort in communicating and all. This performance had so many interesting layers to it that one could keep deciphering them. A great idea and great effort, fruitfully married in this performance.
Wail by Joshua Sailo was a poetic exploration of movement portraying a deep sorrow, loss and a pain.This was one of those performances that shot and dragged beyond where it should have ideally ended. I would have preffered an ending where the movement died and the sound lived on, while the dancer thought otherwise.
Hands and Face project was a brilliant performance that clearly crossed over into theatre domain and would have made a beautiful and poetic theatre performance. The difference, however, just as Eddie had remarked in the course of his speech, this morning, was a thin and fast dissolving one.
The culturally restrained stage of Kalakshetra was in for some big shocks this evening. it would be interesting to see who is the winner chosen by this experienced Jury tomorrow.
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