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AVANI..
a handful of dust - Creative Notes
a dance theatre presentation by Anita Ratnam and ensemble
Director-Choreographer Note:
Hari Krishnan - Director
Anita Ratnam - Choreographer-performer
This is our 15th dance-theatre collaboration. Since 1997, abstracting
mythology has been an integral theme in our collaborative process.
Harnessing Anita’s diverse/versatile skills set in new, experimental
and original veins has been critical to my role as her director and
choreographic third -eye. We are interested in creating stark, organic
and potent structures to house the movement structure. Avani/Handful of
Dust has propelled us for the first time in a new direction - paying
tribute to a genius of world literature: Gurudev Tagore. No gods and
goddesses here! His elusive poetry, lush with Indian imagery and rich in
metaphors allows me to blur the parameters of traditional narrative
vocabulary and explore unfamiliar dimensions in abstract movement,
staging geometry, minimalist architectonics and contrarian emotional
landscapes. Spanning intensive creative workshop sessions from Chennai
to Connecticut we “aggressively” ideated, created, improvised, and
distilled world-dance/ theatre that spoke from the heart of the Tagore
in us. Avani is our personal meditation with Gurudev at a “global
Shantiniketan” in the 21st century.
Visual Designer’s Note:
REX - Stage and Visual Design
Tackling Tagore on stage is a Herculean challenge! How does one
manifest/articulate his singular genius through dance while retaining
his resonance in a contemporaneous vein? After much “head banging on the
wall”, I chose to design a text-based environment in which to house the
interpreters thus allowing them the grace to borrow the essence/energy
of Tagore’s eternal words. Gurudev’s writings incarnate as the principal
protagonist animating fellow travelers on a non-linear, pioneering,
mystical journey to inhabit his forever pertinent, renaissance world. I
hope “reading” our Avani will leave you with an aching heart akin to the
one that Tagore’s poetry kindles….
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