For 41-year-old Paramita Saha, dance is not both a career and passion that has taken her across the globe for quarter of a century to perform contemporary choreography. A co-director of Sapphire Creations Dance Company, one of the premier contemporary dance companies, Saha has also created At The Still Point -- the only crowdfunded platform for performing arts in our country -- which presents artistes working on unusual content that is socially and politically relevant.
Last year, Kolkata witnessed Queen-Size, a choreographic exploration of intimacy between two men in response to section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises homosexuality in India.
This year Saha is presenting their second act, Body Sense, in which two women choreographers ask us to stop and listen to our body talk in this vile and violent times.
Rorschach Touch, choreographed and performed by Bangalore’s Diya Naidu and her team, explores perception in the context of gendered bodies by pushing beyond the gendered limitations. It’s an intimate work involving the audience and treats the body and its states with sensitivity, humour and intense candour.
A diploma holder in Movement Arts and Mixed media, Naidu has been engaging with projects in the area of gender and politics with a spiritual touch in her approach. “I had done similar works earlier that dealt with the violence of patriarchy upon the female body, the violence of apathy in that context and the violence of class and caste in the context of gender. This piece approaches tactile human interaction in its several shades and manifestations. In our lives, violence occurs both subtly and obviously. Here violence can be seen in its nuanced forms along with tenderness, curiosity, hesitation, ambiguity and myriad human tendencies,” explains Naidu.
Rorschach Touch has been performed in Bangalore several times and in Manipal. Naidu is both excited and nervous to present it for the first time in Kokata.
“The name of the piece comes from the famous ‘Rorschach ink blot test’, where people are asked to interpret how they see random blots of ink on a paper, to assess their mental health. Here, the touch serves as the ink blot - the viewer witnesses and interprets and hopefully sees not just the action in the space but also becomes aware of their own tendencies, desires, biases, triggers and so on,” says the 34-years-old choreographer.
Mumbai’s Avantika Bahl who studied at the London Contemporary Dance School, is a dance practitioner, who runs Dance Dialogues, a platform that connects independent choreographers in the city. Her latest work, Say, What?focuses on the interaction between two people who slide between using and abandoning codified language.
“As a dance practitioner and choreographer, I have always been interested in finding alternate modes of expression using movement. Growing up, I was fascinated by sign language, the soundless communication, and the ability to have private conversations in public spaces,” says Bahl.
In 2015, she started to learn sign language. A year later she decided to find a way to marry movement and sign, thereby creating a performance. “The dance act, Say, What? addresses notions of communication through the body, and implicates the audience to re evaluate their own relationship with sound by engaging with the work,” says 32-year-old Bahl.
At the Still Point, which is a one of a kind crowdfunded arts event platform, strives to bring to Kolkata unique choreography shows every year and next time, Saha is planning to scout and showcase home-bred talents, which have not yet been much publicised.
What: Act II Body Sense:
Rorschach Touch
When: July 7, two shows: 4.30 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Say, What?
When: July 8, two shows: 4.30 p.m. and 7 p.m.
Where: Kolkata Centre For Creativity,
777, Anandapur, EM Bypass, Kolkata, near Calcutta International School