Preethi Bharadwaj brings her live dance musical, 'Me and My Trash' to Bengaluru
From mundane to extraordinary, life transforms when we embrace the beauty of small moments and find meaning in the smallest of experiences. Here’s one such example set by Preethi Bharadwaj, a well-known classical dancer and theatre artiste who is also a teacher, performer and choreographer — engaging her audience by appealing and elevating their thoughts on issues we might otherwise consider mundane.
The purpose behind her performance goes beyond a mere representation of Indian art form in its unique amalgamation of dance, theatre and movement This event in its whole sincerity reveals the thin lining between women as they are and women commoditised by society. The story is of a single mother who embarked on a lone journey facing the atrocities of our society.
The performer navigates her way through theatre to express and reveal the unseen reality to the world. With that in mind, Preethi Bharadwaj enthrals her audience, provoking their thoughts as she creates a space for introspection through her theatrical dance performance and now she brings her very own piece Me and My Trash to Bengaluru. The performance is in collaboration with Kana by Coffee Mechanics and in association with Mamangam Dance Company. We get chatty with Preethi to know everything about her performance.
What is the inspiration behind Me and My Trash?
The reason why I created this work is that I started finding myself in a space about a lot of things I am using in life. It can be objects, it can be theories, it can be beliefs, a lot of these. And then I started looking at how responsible I am with these, how these make me or break me, the priority of these things, their presence in my life and a lot about my presence in my environment. It started taking more shape in my head, and then I saw that these thoughts and my art are not very far, they are always meeting somewhere and hence was born Me and My Trash.
Could you share with us one of your most memorable performances so far?
One of my most memorable performances would be, in January 2020 when I performed inside the Chennai metro train. This was for an event called Chennai Kalai Theru Vizha, organised by team Krishna. First, we travelled from one point to another and again while coming back to the first point, we had to do the same performance, so there was a stand-up comedy performance by Abhishek Kumar followed by a music performance by Bindhumalini and then was my dance performance.
I remember the metro train master, came and asked me if I was going to wear my ghungroo inside the train because he was really scared that I was going to jump around and do something to the train and I said “No, I am not going to wear the ghunghroo.” So I did a piece about a woman, a single mother and how she ages as her child ages. It started with me being an old woman and as I was trying to embody it the train kept shaking and then that kind of added on by itself to what I was intending to do and I went with it. And as I was talking about my child and all that within that piece, there was a small girl who ran across and then there were people who had no clue that there are classical dance forms present in India. Many people had no clue about the dance form I was presenting and that made me think does the form matter as long as I am talking to them?
How has your journey been so far as a theatre artiste?
My journey as a theatre artiste has been enriching, to say the least. I say this very often to many of my friends and students who ask about how theatre helped dance. Performing, practising, learning and engaging in theatre performances has helped me fall in love more with movement, with dance and with everything I do with movement. It has taught me to be in the moment and respond at the moment and that’s quite a life lesson.
What are your plans for 2024? Where can we see you next?
I want to create more, perform more and learn more. Two of the things I intend to do are - one is a piece called Hey, It’s Me, Lakshmi. It’s envisioned as a theatrical dance piece but it’s kind of a mix of movement, theatre and impromptu standup. The other is to share the joy of movement with as many people as I can. There’s another one which is to relook at performance spaces, create performance spaces out of space we never imagined and eventually normalise that in the many coming years. You can see me next on January 30 and 31 at Kana by Coffee Mechanics for the performance and a movement workshop.
INR 600 onwards. January 30 and 31, 6.30 pm. At Kana by Coffee Mechanics, Hennur Gardens.
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