Dancing "Tabaah"

Photographer: Rob Fadtke (ZoArt Photography)

Dancing "Tabaah" is hard. It is difficult to put your self in that place. That mental space. To fathom that sense of violation. To try and imagine and relive a fragment of what she must have felt, what any girl who has been through such an experience must feel.

"Tabaah" started with Nirbhaya, and the terrible incident that haunted Delhi in December 2012. The girl who was gang raped with a terrible violence, assaulted and then left to die. She finally succumbed to her injuries thirteen days later. But a lot of us could not forget her, could not get over the extreme horror of the incident.

"Tabaah" is but a weak reflection provoked by that incident. Amit (one of my best friends and dance partner) & I conceptualized "Tabaah" for the Mona Khan Company showcase. It started with a dance-based theatrical creation of a gang rape. I don't believe you can act this, you have to live it. We recreated this in the comfort of a studio. The boys who played the role of the predators are my friends who I am extremely comfortable with. Yet even in this protected environment, in this distant re-imagining, I felt that pain, that helplessness, that rage, that shame. I still feel afraid when they surround me, I feel violated when they touch me. I feel like I am nothing, less than nothing. And then Amit comes in, as my partner who tries to help me deal with it and I hate myself, I hate him, I don't want him to see my like this, I don't want him to touch me but somehow he soothes me. Not just in the story of the piece, he actually does...

Photographer: Rob Fadtke (ZoArt Photography)

We have performed "Tabaah" three times and we are to perform it another three times this March. It is a piece I connect with viscerally because I feel so strongly, so deeply, the horror of rape, the gross violation of a woman's space, her body, her being. And as I feel my heart beat faster on stage and the tears at the edge of my eyes, and rage storming in the center of my being, I can't help but feel that this is nothing, nothing at all... I think of Nirbhaya, I think of the nameless girls who just become a piece of news, and others who don't break the silence, whose stories are not even acknowledged.

As artists, it is our attempt to comment on and engage with society. Our attempt to give voice to those whose voices remain unheard. I know I want to say something, I want to scream it for all to hear, but what I say will never be enough, not nearly enough...

Ideas

An idea is really nothing. 

It is pre-embryo. Nameless, shapeless. 

It just sits there sweltering in your mind, plaguing your thoughts, wanting to come out in some perfect form, which you just cannot fathom. I have many such ideas, which crowd my head, jostle for space, wanting to be heard, to be expressed. Usually just the process of sifting these ideas leaves me exhausted. 

And yet when I feel like no thought is possible, another idea sneaks its way into my consciousness, softly mocking me...

Hello Writing!

I haven't written on this blog for like a year, maybe more...basically forever. I had many goals and slowly I lost track of them all. The truth is writing for me is making sense of chaos (Dechaosify...duh!) And it is whimsical, it is erratic, it is something I do when I want to do.

OK if I wasn't a dancer I would probably have been a writer. But since dance consumes me so completely, there is little of me left to write. But that little part has it's own ideas that must be expressed.

So hello writing. I am back again! Our liaison may be short-lived but intense, it will be!

littledancethings.tumblr.com

Stunning Underwater Photography

I was blown away by these beautiful pictures by photographer Howard Schatz. Dance photography in itself can be quite stunning but to shoot underwater gives it this surreal, dream-like quality.

World's Largest 3D Painting

Street artist '3D Joe & Max’ turned part of London’s Canary Wharf quayside into the longest and largest 3D artwork. Reebok collaborated with Crossfit to develop this.

It is just so super cool that I had to post it.

Picture Courtesy: designtaxi.com

"Crazy Horse" documentary by Frederick Wiseman

I have had the opportunity to watch the Las Vegas version of Paris's famous revue, "Crazy Horse" at the MGM Grand.
I feel that the artistic elements complement and almost override the erotic aspects of the performance. I remember a friend saying that "after a point you don't even realize that they are nude!" The dancers are technically skilled (and of course gorgeous!), the lighting is hauntingly beautiful and each act is conceptualized in a unique way.

This movie, titled "Crazy Horse," has been directed and edited by  Frederick Wiseman and was released in New York today.  It takes a look behind the velvet curtains of "Le Crazy Horse de Paris." In an interview discussing the documentary, Wiseman talks about his interest in the comedy and tragedy in ordinary experience that have not been tapped in documentary terms. He is basically interested in the institutional context of "Crazy Horse," (he speaks about exploring behaviors defined within the boundaries of specific institutions). This is not a voyeuristic journey into the lives of the dancers.

Frederick Weisman says he is limited by the facts since it is a documentary but nevertheless, I think that it will be an interesting film to watch.