Dance spectacular a celebration of many cultures and styles

 

 

 

With singing, live music, dancing and authentic, handmade Indian costumes, The King’s Salon, performed by dance group inDance, is guaranteed to give Ottawa something to talk about.

 

The 80-minute show will be performed at Carleton University’s Kailash Mital Theatre on Aug. 30 and will showcase Bharatanatyam, a classical style of Indian dance.

 

“Like most classical Indian dance forms you will see an extremely dynamic mix of movements, fast rhythmic footwork, high power jumps, and hand gestures used to create stories,” said Hari Krishnan, the artistic director of inDance and one of the show’s lead dancers.

 

“It is a mix of pure movement for the sake of movement as well as expressive, interpretive dance.”

 

Seven dancers and five musicians, including a vocalist, a violinist, a percussionist and an English voice-over actress, will tell the story of the Tanjavur Kings, the patrons of music and dance in South India.

 

“Salon is a full-length classical production celebrating the aesthetic of 18th and 19th century court culture, which was at the heart of Bharatanatyam,” Krishnan said.

 

“During this time India experienced the pique of colonialism as well as patronage. The show tries to capture that excitement and the cosmopolitan identity of what India was at that time.”

 

inDance, which is based out of Toronto, has performed all over the world and is a multi-ethnic company, explained Krishnan.

 

Salon is presented by the Lumbini Arts Society, which is a community organization dedicated to promoting Indian music and dance in Ottawa.

 

Professor V. Subramaniam, who taught in the political science department at Carleton from 1974-2004, founded the society with the intention of bringing Buddhist themes back to Indian dance.

 

According to Krishnan, Buddhist themes are present in inDance’s performances but are not central and the group takes a refreshing approach to the portrayal of Buddhist values.

 

“We are not interested in the mythology of the gods, we are interested in the humanity, the human feelings that the gods exhibit,” he explained.

 

“The humanity, that for us is more interesting because it makes the story more accessible to a universal audience. It’s about not limiting the discourse to a specific religion or a specific culture.”

 

In this way inDance is able to create a spectacle that transcends cultural, ethnic and language barriers.

 

“One of the pieces the audience will see in The King’s Salon is a British colonial band march,” Krishnan elaborated.

 

“We try to go beyond what is contemporary, what is modern, what is classical and try to interrogate our own assumptions of what it means to be modern and classical.”

 

“It is extremely open to all communities, all genres, all ethnicities and races. It is not limited to a South Asian audience.”

 

Krishnan, who was trained in Tanjavur by traditional dance masters, promises that the show will not disappoint, describing it as an educational and vibrant mixture of historical and contemporary culture, coming together in a harmonious blend.

 

“It will be quite a spectacle for the audience.”