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The rich classical dance and music traditions
of south India, overlaid with poetry and theatre in English,
serve the basis for the world premiere of Alekhya: Spilling Ink
(Alekhya), in Chennai, Friday, November 23, 2007.
The production, now one-year in the making,
explores the idea of individuals and their relationship to
creativity while working within traditional frameworks.
The performance, opening at 7 p.m. at
Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in Mylapore, features five dancers from
the United States and India, a live music ensemble and a theatre
artiste from the United States.
"My intent in launching a project like
Alekhya was to think outside the box," said United States-based
Vijay Palaparty, project lead, dancer and writer. "The Indian
classical arts, both performing and visual, are so sacred -
often recounting stories of gods and goddesses or praying. In
writing the script, I explore the journey of the individual
within the religious traditions and also view the work from the
perspective of how creativity
itself, at even a basic level, could be a form of prayer."
For Alekhya, Vijay chose to work with Nalini
Prakash from Coonoor and Padma S. Raghavan from Chennai, who
serve as lead co-choreographers and dancers.
Nalini, Padma and Vijay are affiliated with
Shree Bharatalaya, Sudharani Raghupathyıs institution of
Bharatanatyam, which is also based in Chennai. The three have
worked together previously both in India and the United States,
performing widely in several tours across the United States
since the Fall 2005 season.
"The opportunity to re-examine repertoire
pieces that have been part of my dancing career for over three
decades has proved both challenging and rewarding," Nalini said.
"The pieces we selected for the repertoire provide ample scope
for reinterpretation. The choreography has some contemporary
flavor and is also influenced by other Indian classical dance
styles."
Mirroring the margam format of the
Bharatanatyam repertoire, the work features five distinct
compositions including a Jatiswaram, Varnam and Thillana,
composed by the late Madurai N. Krishnan. Additional pieces
include a song on Lord Shiva and a poem written by Subramania
Bharathiar.
"We have departed slightly in our approach to
the project as a whole, but our foundation is Bharatanatyam,"
Padma said. "The live music ensemble provides more innovation,
as we have deconstructed portions of the pieces where we thought
we could elaborate. After all, the project is a discovery we are
making, and part of it is to show the process by which we have
come to answer the questions we set out to ask."
United States-based theater artist Jennifer
Schaupp, from Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, serves as theatre artist
and literary consultant. Jennifer will guide the audience on an
artistic journey, reading poetry, letters and essays written by
Vijay. She will serve as the voice of the dancers as a
collective, sometimes appearing parallel to the miming dancers.
"Considering my previous work with Indian
dance, I find its storytelling aspects most compelling,"
Jennifer said. "Using inspiration from the text, the dance and
the music, my role is to create the voice for the project, the
message I bring aims to be personal yet universal in scope."
Chennai-based dancers Ashwini Viswanathan and
K B Madhusudanan are also part of the project. Some of the
production values include specially made costumes and
professional theatre lighting design. The work is slated to tour
other cities in India in future as well as throughout the United
States.
"We hope to convey an organic experience to
the viewer," said Vijay. "Getting to the core of expression is
one way of saying what spilling ink is all about. Also, I
thought of spilling ink because when something is spilled, it
really has no control. Itıs fresh and different each time. How
the spill is addressed is interesting."
The performance is free and open to all.
For more details, please contact:
Phone: +91 98430 52225, (423) 223 0123, (044) 2433 9627, or +91
98843 87696
e-mail:
vijay.palaparty@gmail.com
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