When you hear that an artist friend, known for her unconventional thoughts, challenging established patterns, a subaltern outlook and expressiveness was conceiving an experiment in dance and staging it at Spaces, Beasant nagar, your expectations of the event rise a few notches.
Knowing Samatha Sharma for around a year now, i was quite eagerly looking forward to witness Anaayaasa, an experimentation in dance effortlessness. I walked in a few minutes late, to cymbals and drums beating Kerala style, the music reaching me before the dance, as i was approaching the performance space, wondering what spectacle was awaiting me.
i was glad to join a hand full crowd and settle down happily into a reflective mood watching the performance. on the stage there was Samatha reeling off in what looked like a set of alliterative movements, shaking to music. Now when i think of her movement, which more or less struck to a pattern, my mind plays a totally strange, swirling disco music of its own to accompany it. She had Arun Oliverse accompanying her or rather alongside her exploring his own movement with the music. If not for Arun's presence and movements, one could have easily thought Samatha was in a disco.
But Arun's own distinct strides with the music put this performance in perspective. it set the stage or rather the boundary for ideas to be brought in. Ideas variously stated as the restriction to freedom, Male Chauvinism on the female dancers, Patriarchy, The beats of Time, etc. by the audience at the end of the show.
In retrospect, it looks like Arun's movement was the game changer. it is the one that makes the viewer think- what are these guys upto, what are they trying to say. I think, that is exactly what the creator had in mind, and there in lies the success of this performance.
At the end of a short piece, Mrinalini sekar joins the duo on stage. She brought in a different flavor of movement. Her's was a little more refined and structured movement. Her movements reflected certain discipline and conviction. Mrinalini's movements were like a creeper plant twsiting and turning around a support. Though it was all random, there was a certain discipline to it. Whereas, Samatha's movements were like a kite blowing with the wind, it had lots of energy and high degree of froce and randomness.
there were moments when the creeper and kite come together and a viewer desires to see a certain synchronicity captured, but is left rebuking self for entertaining such stupid thoughts. for, here was not a decorative performance, but an exploratory one, here there was no point in looking for symbolism or motifs.
As Samatha expressed at the end of the performance that she wanted the dancers to find their own language/ alphabets in finding expression to the music, that much was very evident in the performance. The performance was like a triptych of three different movement expressions to a music. The three movements interplaying with each other, giving the viewers anxious moments, but finally leaving the viewer with three fine distinct languages/ statements.
Congratulations to Samatha for conceiving and idea and bringing it to life, and to Mrinalini and Arun for truly believing and subscribing to a new and strange idea. well done Team.
Knowing Samatha Sharma for around a year now, i was quite eagerly looking forward to witness Anaayaasa, an experimentation in dance effortlessness. I walked in a few minutes late, to cymbals and drums beating Kerala style, the music reaching me before the dance, as i was approaching the performance space, wondering what spectacle was awaiting me.
i was glad to join a hand full crowd and settle down happily into a reflective mood watching the performance. on the stage there was Samatha reeling off in what looked like a set of alliterative movements, shaking to music. Now when i think of her movement, which more or less struck to a pattern, my mind plays a totally strange, swirling disco music of its own to accompany it. She had Arun Oliverse accompanying her or rather alongside her exploring his own movement with the music. If not for Arun's presence and movements, one could have easily thought Samatha was in a disco.
But Arun's own distinct strides with the music put this performance in perspective. it set the stage or rather the boundary for ideas to be brought in. Ideas variously stated as the restriction to freedom, Male Chauvinism on the female dancers, Patriarchy, The beats of Time, etc. by the audience at the end of the show.
In retrospect, it looks like Arun's movement was the game changer. it is the one that makes the viewer think- what are these guys upto, what are they trying to say. I think, that is exactly what the creator had in mind, and there in lies the success of this performance.
At the end of a short piece, Mrinalini sekar joins the duo on stage. She brought in a different flavor of movement. Her's was a little more refined and structured movement. Her movements reflected certain discipline and conviction. Mrinalini's movements were like a creeper plant twsiting and turning around a support. Though it was all random, there was a certain discipline to it. Whereas, Samatha's movements were like a kite blowing with the wind, it had lots of energy and high degree of froce and randomness.
there were moments when the creeper and kite come together and a viewer desires to see a certain synchronicity captured, but is left rebuking self for entertaining such stupid thoughts. for, here was not a decorative performance, but an exploratory one, here there was no point in looking for symbolism or motifs.
As Samatha expressed at the end of the performance that she wanted the dancers to find their own language/ alphabets in finding expression to the music, that much was very evident in the performance. The performance was like a triptych of three different movement expressions to a music. The three movements interplaying with each other, giving the viewers anxious moments, but finally leaving the viewer with three fine distinct languages/ statements.
Congratulations to Samatha for conceiving and idea and bringing it to life, and to Mrinalini and Arun for truly believing and subscribing to a new and strange idea. well done Team.
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