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India @ UK 2017
Sriyah –A decade of dance-making, is a selection of the best the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble has devised over a decade, starting from Śrī to Samyoga perfectly blended into Śriyaḥ, choreographed by Surupa Sen and set to an original live score composed by Pt. Raghunath Panigrahi.
A virtuoso performance by the Nrityagram Dance Ensemble, globally acclaimed as one of India’s premiere dance companies, will bring onto stage the magic of Indian classical dance form Odissi almost making a majestic piece of temple sculpture come alive to audiences.
For centuries, a temple has looked out at a turbulent sea, its walls dancing a prayer to the rising sun. Magnificent ruins like these, in Odisha in Eastern India, confirm that Odissi was performed as far back as 200 BCE. Originally a sacred ritual dedicated to the gods, Odissi is one of the oldest dance traditions in the world. Its sinuous forms, languorous limbs and rapt expressions are frozen in stone tell of a past rich in dance, music, myth and legend. Odissi speaks of love and union, between human and divine, transporting viewers to enchanted worlds of magic and spirituality. Its sensuousness and lyricism reflect both the motifs of Odisha temple sculpture as well as the poetry from the deep wellsprings of Oriya music.
Ancient wisdom, sacred rituals, divine transformation; unveiled and interpreted in electrifying dance. Watch and you might witness a sacred transfiguration: from stage to temple, from woman to goddess.
The Dance Ensemble, Nrityagram’s repertory company, is regarded as one of the foremost dance companies of India, performing all over the world including an annual tour to the United States. Although steeped in and dedicated to ancient practice, the Ensemble is also committed to carrying Indian dance into the twenty-first century. Enabled by grants from the National Dance Project of the New England Foundation for the Arts, and more recently from The Joyce Theater, New York, Nrityagram’s dancers not only explore creative expansions of tradition but are also able to commission fresh compositions from leading Indian classical musicians. Since 2000, Nrityagram has presented five full-length Ensemble shows, all choreographed by Surupa Sen.
Śrī: In Search of the Goddess (2000), consisted of both a non-traditional suite (Night, Fire, Dialogue with Death) and a re-working of traditional dance (Śrīmatī, Śrīmayī, and Śrīdevī).
Ansh (2004) was a reworking of a typical Odissi recital, which toured extensively in India and the United States including a run at the Joyce Theater, New York in 2005.
Sacred Space (2006), a show based on Temple Architecture and its relationship to dance, which toured the United States for six months.
Pratimä: Reflection (2008) commissioned by the Joyce Theater’s Stephen and Cathy Weinroth Fund for New Work as part of their 225th-anniversary celebrations and premiered in February of 2008 at the Joyce Theater, New York. Vibhakta, from Pratimä: Reflection, was listed in “The 10 best dance performances of 2008” by The New Yorker.
Saṃhära (2012), which was Nrityagram’s first international collaboration. Together with Sri Lanka’s Chitrasena Dance Company, it explored the meeting point between the sensuousness of Nrityagram’s Odissi and the masculine dynamism of the Chitrasena’s Kandyan dance. Saṃhärawas premiered in Bangalore in February 2012, toured the United States, Sri Lanka and the Far East.
Śriyaḥ, a selection of works created over a decade, tours and performs to great critical acclaim across the globe.
Nrityagram has also presented two full-length duet shows choreographed by Surupa Sen - Saṃyoga (2012), which had its North America premiere for World Music Institute, New York, and Songs of Love and Longing (2013), which had its North America premiere at the Baryshnikov Arts Centre, New York.
“As performed by the three superb female dancers from Nrityagram, it is hypnotically lovely to watch. The flow and precision of their movement makes you think of water, of unravelling silk… This is an ancient dance, joyously and sexily performed in the present tense.” The Guardian
“The only proper response to dancers this amazing is worship!” The New York Times
Śriyaḥ is part of India@UK2017, produced by Teamwork Arts in association with the Indian Ministry of Culture and The High Commission of India. The show is also the culmination of India@Uk2017’s Season of Theatre and Dance, a programme that has brought to the UK India’s leading dance companies Aditi Mangaldas Dance Company – The Drishtikon Dance Foundation and Daksha Sheth Dance Company as well as theatre companies AKVarious Productions and Dramanon Theatre, across venues including the Southbank Centre, Birmingham Hippodrome, Edinburgh Festival Theatre, Tramway Glasgow, Mac Birmingham and Shakespeare’s Globe.
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