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Glow
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Schedule
Program
Opening
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| FOR IMMEDIATE
RELEASE |
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“GLOW”
WARMS UP NYC’S WINTER DANCE SEASON
Nayikas Indian Dance Company Begins Third Year with Exciting
New Work March 15-19
Presented by The Rubin Museum of Art in association with Indo-American
Arts Council
PRESS PREVIEW:
Nayikas will be holding a special press preview on the afternoon
of Friday, March 11 from 2-4pm at the Rubin Museum of Art. Press
and camera crews are welcome.
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WHO:
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Nayikas
Dance Theater ~ NY's first resident Indian Odissi dance
theater company
For Gala March 15 -- celebrity
guests including Mira Nair,
Ismail Merchant, Mahmood Mamdani, Salman Rushdie and Padma
Lakshmi. Fusion cuisine dinner, live entertainment
by Manu Narayan of ‘Bombay Dreams’
and Trumpet and Saxophone duet by Jonathan
Finlayson featuring original compositions |
WHAT:
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“Glow”
~ A multimedia, experimental dance theater performance |
WHERE:
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The
Rubin Museum of Art ~ 150 West 17th Street, New York,
NY 10011 |
| WHEN:
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March
17 & 18 at 7 pm ~ Tickets $25 (student & seniors
$18, subject to availability)
March 19 at 3 pm ~ Tickets $25 (student & seniors
$18, subject to availability) |
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Performances
will kick off with a special Gala Premiere ~ March 15
at 7 pm ~ |
| Tickets:
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$175
includes museum entrance, admission to same day performance,
after-show dinner event with live entertainment & celebrity
guests
$160 after-show dinner event only plus performance on any
other day
$150 after-show dinner event only |
| HOW:
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For
tickets, call 212-620-5000 ext 344 or purchase
at Rubin Admissions Desk
or online at reservations@rmanyc.org
Subway lines B, D, F, V, 1, 2, 3, 9, A, C, E or PATH to
14th St. (bet. 6th & 7th)
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With
winter in full force, what better way to warm those cold New
York nights than by taking in a performance of what the Village
Voice calls, “A glowing addition to the city’s
mix… so sultry and lush is the dance, so intense the focus,
so tropical the ambience.”
Nayikas Dance Theater Company’s sensual, hypnotic, compelling
movements challenge the dancer and captivate audiences, demonstrating
the power of Odissi, India’s oldest Classical dance form.
Now in its third year, Nayikas is the first resident South Asian
company of its kind in New York. Known for its startlingly modern
theatrical dance pieces, the group’s latest offering, “Glow,”
will be presented by the Rubin Museum of Art in association
with the Indo-American Arts Council. Performances are on March
17 and 18 at 7 pm, and March 19 at 3 pm at the Rubin, New York’s
newest museum. The performance series kicks off with a special
Gala Premiere on March 15, featuring fusion cuisine dinner,
live entertainment, and celebrity guests.
“Glow” is Nayikas' new multimedia, experimental
dance theater project. It uses dance as well as radiants of
South Asian culture – cinema, comic book images and calendar
art – to aid in visually mapping elements of popular consciousness
to the abstractness of classical forms. It exposes ruptures
in traditional understandings of text and philosophy while exploring
spirituality and sensuality through the dancer’s body.
The simple act of women adorning themselves "glows"
with the pulse of the feminine divine, as does the graceful
movement of hips swaying, of feet reverberating. A new sense
of woman, of body, and of the spiritual is realized when Gods
defy gendered classification, and the demonic divine coexists
with the sensual feminine.
Nayikas means “heroines” in the Sanskrit language,
and that’s just what this dance troupe is comprised of
– heroic, groundbreaking dance artists. The ensemble’s
blending of Classical and contemporary influences makes them
distinct on the dance scene. Artistic Director & Choreographer
Myna Mukherjee (profiled last season in The New York
Times) gives the traditional movements a modern
and urban flair. Nayikas tell stories that resurrect often neglected,
alternate voices of women, drawing from feminist iconography
present in the footnotes of Indian mythology, history, literature
and Diaspora. This preserves the essential spiritual core of
the dance form while envisioning gender equality, advocating
women’s rights and promoting diversity of imagination in
“Hindu” cultures beyond the often-patriarchal religiosity
of these traditions. Company repertoire typically borrows narratives
from the Tantric and Buddhist pantheon of a female-centered
cosmos, while exploring themes of divinity, sexuality and humanity.
It seeks new space within traditional boundaries: using the
stage as partner and instrument to create symmetry within asymmetric
spatial patterns; and infuses classical grammar with the compelling
physicality of Yoga and Chauu Martial Art movements.
Principal
dancer Sunanda Sammadar, along with ensemble dancers Aditi
Dhruv, Punchali Khanna, Shrooti Singh, Kirti Srivastava, and
Pavithra Vasudeven, are from incredibly diverse backgrounds,
with extensive training in Indian classical dance – predominantly
Odissi and Bharatnatyam, but also Yoga, Ballet, Modern, and
Martial Arts. The style is a conflux of two seminal lineages,
that of Guru Deba Prasad Das/Guru Durga Charan Ranbir (with
tribal and yogic roots); and; that of Guru Maya Dhar Raut/Guru
Dibankar Kuntia (renowned for evocative & languid syntax).
Performance credits include amongst others The Lincoln Center,
Symphony Space, Baruch Performing Arts Center, Brooklyn Museum
of the Arts, Queens Museum, the MET in Soho, Chashama Theater,
and Yale University.
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| Indo-American
Arts Council
The Indo-American
Arts Council is dedicated to promoting and building an awareness
of all artistic disciplines in classical, fusion, folk and innovative
forms influenced by the arts of India. We work cooperatively
with colleagues both in the United States and in India, to showcase
and facilitate the exhibition, performance and production of
their work in the US, to broaden our collective audiences, and
to create a network for shared information and resources.
The Rubin
Museum of Art
The Rubin Museum of Art is New York's newest museum. Opened
on October 2nd, 2004, it is the first museum in the Western
World dedicated to the art of the Himalayas and surrounding
regions. The museum's mission is to establish, present, preserve
and document a permanent collection that reflects the vitality,
complexity and historical significance of Himalayan art. The
museum also seeks to create an environment in which a dynamic
between the performing and the visual arts can bring about a
dialogue that enriches both exhibition visitor and theater audience.
www.rmanyc.org
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Recent
Praise for Nayikas
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| “Visual
triumph and creatively inspiring experience… fresh contemporary
style... Nayikas mesmerizes.” Tasha Harris, Talent
In Motion
“The
dancers danced like water flowing over a rock while also being
the rock… consistent high quality… excellent group…
felt compelled to return.” Robert Abrams, ExploreDance
“Sheer
joy of experience… breaking new ground.” Art
Track Magazine
“Myna
Mukherjee’s Nayikas… exhibited great choreographic
flair.” Leela Venkataraman, The Hindu
“Extremely
innovative and dynamic choreography…beautifully crafted…
more dramative version of Odissi.” Rajika Puri,
News India Times
--Chosen
by Fox-TV’s “Good Day New York” as
a Top Five Pick for NYC Events
--Interviewed
on WB-11 Morning News program
For more information, please visit www.nayikas.org
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