7pm: Pre-performance slide lecture by Rajika Puri: “What makes an Indian dancer great?”
8pm: Performance
Post-performance “Chat & Chai” with the performers
In Rasa, the nine emotions of love, happiness, fear, sorrow, disgust, wonderment, anger, courage and peace unfold in a harmonious blend of traditional and contemporary movement. The work uses the time-honored Indian epic Ramayana as a narrative backdrop from which to explore the navarasa through narrative dance and abstract group choreography. The result is what the Washington Post called a seamless blend of “traditional and contemporary elements in a fully realized evening.”
Kalanidhi Dance performs classical and original works using the timeless visual vocabulary of Kuchipudi, one of India’s eight classical dance forms. Guided by Founder and Artistic Director Anuradha Nehru, Kalanidhi seeks to push Kuchipudi in new and exciting directions while remaining authentic to its style. Over the last decade, Kalanidhi has collaborated across genres and musical styles to critical acclaim, presenting Kuchipudi to Yanni, Philip Glass, and Ravi Shankar, and performing with Opera Lafayette, The New York Baroque Dance Company, and the Sean Curran Company. The New York Times has called Kalanidhi “a combination of bright energy, full-bodied sweetness and rapid precision” and a “rare amalgam of prime dance virtues.”
“Nehru uses Kuchipudi, the deliciously graceful yet rhythmically pungent South Indian classical form, as the expressive base from which she urges her [...] dancers onto an epic and expressive quest.” - The Washington Post
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