| Erasing Borders Festival of Indian Dance : Outdoor Festival |
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nytimes.com
Traditions Meld Deftly to the Contemporary, New York
Erasing Borders Festival Takes a Modern Turn
By Brian Seibertsept.September 7, 2014 |
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The strongest contrast between the two programs in this year’s Erasing Borders Festival of Indian Dance was atmospheric. The first show, back in late August, was outdoors, against a backdrop of New York Harbor, Statue of Liberty and setting sun that both glorified the dancing and competed with it. The second installment, on Friday, took place inside the relative ordinariness of the Michael Schimmel Center for the Arts at Pace University.
But there were also contrasts of content and style between the programs, both organized by the
Indo-American Arts Council. Whereas the first show was a comprehensive sampling of Indian classical styles, the second emphasized change and contemporary experiment. Vagaries of the weather were replaced by artistic risks
For the kathak dancer Mitul Sengupta, the modernizing elements included video projection. The graphics, which resembled bar codes or the waveforms of an oscilloscope, didn’t add much, and some of the electronic sounds had a cheapening effect. But Ms. Sengupta’s traditional technique was surer, especially in the precision and counter rhythms of her footwork. Though her shapes blurred in rapid spins, her franticness was somewhat justified by the ancient story she depicted of a son sacrificing his life in war.
In “Morphed,” by Veena Basavarajaiah, it was identity that oscillated. The piece’s soloist, the British-Asian dancer Subhash Viman, was an uncommon shape-shifter, never less than lucid. One moment, he was the god Krishna playing his flute; the next, a club kid. He was a pedestrian, squatting, spitting, urinating, and then he was again divine, this time in female form.
For the kathak dancer Mitul Sengupta, the modernizing elements included video projection. The graphics, which resembled bar codes or the waveforms of an oscilloscope, didn’t add much, and some of the electronic sounds had a cheapening effect. But Ms. Sengupta’s traditional technique was surer, especially in the precision and counter rhythms of her footwork. Though her shapes blurred in rapid spins, her franticness was somewhat justified by the ancient story she depicted of a son sacrificing his life in war.
In “Morphed,” by Veena Basavarajaiah, it was identity that oscillated. The piece’s soloist, the British-Asian dancer Subhash Viman, was an uncommon shape-shifter, never less than lucid. One moment, he was the god Krishna playing his flute; the next, a club kid. He was a pedestrian, squatting, spitting, urinating, and then he was again divine, this time in female form.
Through each phase, the versatile Mr. Viman was arresting, whether upside down or making speedy Indian armwork look like vogueing. Certain everyday gestures — the smoking of a cigarette, for example — returned frequently, and with repetition and alternation, the distinction between profane, modern moves and sacred, time-honored ones began to break down. They were all poses, and Mr. Viman kept getting stuck, eloquently expressing contemporary confusion.
In an excerpt from “Not Your Mothers,” by Leah Raphael Curtis and Emily McLoughlin, the music was traditional — and alone on this program, live. But the approach was closer to Martha Graham. The two women wore translucent white scarves, and much of their exploration of the differences between mothers and daughters played out in the covering and uncovering of their faces. At one point, with the fabric over their heads and tight around their necks, they looked like tissue-paper ghosts.
The duet was actually a series of duets, fluidly composed and remarkably coordinated with its original score. Shifting from side-by-side unison to the chase of canon form to the self-assertion of solos, the piece effectively conveyed the tension between generations.
If its climax — with one woman, bareheaded and free, gazing at the other, still covered — skirted melodrama, that excess was balanced by the work’s compositional poise, itself a balance between past and present. |
URL: http://www.nytimes.com/2014/09/08/arts/dance/erasing-borders-festival-takes-a-modern-turn.html?src=twr&_r=0 |
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