Most-popular for their Instagram reels, some of which have already hit 4.2 million views, Hyderabad-based Aayana Dance Company is in town this Friday with their latest production, Dhruva. The performance is part of a tour that will also see the company visit Dubai and USA soon. We catch up with K Manognya Balaraju, artistic director, to find out more about Friday’s show. “This is the first time we are staging something by ourselves in Chennai. We’ve been invited onto some platforms before, but we’re doing everything ourselves this time — from booking the sabha to inviting people and we are pumped to kick-off our tour from Chennai,” begins Manognya.
Dhruva will begin with a Valmiki Namana, a nod to the sage from whom the great tree of literary traditions stem. This will flow into a Maruti Shloka, with each aspect of Hanuman finding expression in an amorphous group of slowly-moving bodies on stage. The shloka will then lend itself to a Vayu Pushpanjali — a traditional nattai composition, imagined with the liberating and powerful vocabulary of the wind, the element of Hanuman. The next piece will be a timeless kriti — Vandanamu Raghunandanam followed by a celebration of the Hanuman Chalisa and the show will end with a Pavamana.
“We find strength through the divine, but before strength comes weakness. Before courage comes fear; and before there is light, there is the storm. This Pavamana is a form of therapy for us. Each of us have our own struggles, our own darkness and dancing this piece helped us find light and strength in each other,” concludes Manognya.
INR 150 onwards. 7 pm onwards. July 15. Rasika Ranjani Sabha, Mylapore.
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