How Padmini Chettur and Preethi Athreya constructed a platform for up to date dance in Chennai

A few decade in the past, artistes Padmini Chettur and Preethi Athreya, perceived a discernible vacuum within the metropolis’s up to date dance scene.

The 2 performers, whose apply started within the Nineteen Nineties, have a tendency to interact with artwork by way of ideas, conversations, contemplation and multiplicities. Their work seeks not solely a elementary and tangible relationship with the physique by way of motion, but additionally an intimate philosophy that defines their creativity.

When areas to interact with this philosophy started dwindling, the 2 dancers ended up answering a clarion name — one which stemmed from want.

“There appeared to be no platform for choreographers within the metropolis, particularly as festivals started shifting to locations equivalent to Bengaluru. Preethi and I had been at all times simply doing the whole lot ourselves — producing our work and organise our personal reveals,” says Padmini.

Over espresso, the 2 dancers, armed with pencils, papers and laptops, spoke in regards to the delivery of March Dance’s first version in 2017, the expansion of the competition and the whole lot that drives them to proceed conducting this annual occasion.

In its ninth version, March Dance has advanced from a modest showcase of three works to a multidisciplinary platform, spanning three days, facilitating discourse and creative progress. This 12 months the present has been curated by Basement 21 and Goethe Institut, in cooperation with Alliance Française of Madras, InKo Centre and Prakriti Basis. It is going to happen on March 16, 20 and 21 at Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai.

If one should be reductive, then this version will see performers from completely different elements of the world exploring need, ageing our bodies, migration and Mizo folks tales. However that isn’t all. March Dance guarantees per week of “dynamic and thought-provoking encounters celebrating up to date dance in all its variety”.

Padmini and Preethi had labored collectively within the Basement 21 collective, established in 2011. “The catalyst for March Dance was to discover a framework that would maintain Basement 21’s particular person initiatives and approaches at dance-making. This led to the thought of a competition that would carry the varied strands of B21 initiatives into one house. This was in 2017,” says Preethi. She remembers that dancers expressed a need to carry out in Chennai, prompting her and Preethi to think about a collaborative strategy. “Why don’t we simply put three up to date dance works collectively?” Padmini recounts, explaining their resolution to organise one another’s work and foster “a way of a neighborhood curating itself, not only a single artiste.” The inaugural occasion featured Padmini’s ‘Varnam’, Preethi’s ‘Leaping Venture’, and ‘Queen Measurement’, a chunk by their long-time pal and colleague Mandeep Raikhy. They carried out two reveals every, making a mini competition that exposed a “actual want and necessity for one thing like this.”

From its humble beginnings, the competition rapidly recognised the significance of partaking dancers past mere spectatorship. It started conducting workshops, constructing on the success of the one led by Pravin Kannanur and Maarten Visser, two different founding members of the Basement 21 collective. This transfer was additionally strategic. Padmini notes, “the Bharatanatyam neighborhood was by no means , and even 10 years later there may be zero curiosity. However we have to construct an viewers.”

Modern dancer Preethi Athreya.
| Picture Credit score:
Particular Association

Preethi elaborates on the philosophical underpinnings of the Basement 21 collective, which predates the competition. Established in 2011, the collective aimed to deal with a vacuum for artistes who didn’t match into the normal dance varieties. She provides, “There was no discourse across the up to date. The dialogue was actually centered across the classical and experimentations thereof. Whereas we see the up to date as having its personal reliable historical past and discourse.”

The collective initiated three key actions: Encounters, interdisciplinary workshops and collaborations with artwork galleries. ‘Encounters’ offered a secure house for younger choreographers to current fragile and unformed work. The interdisciplinary workshops, as Preethi describes, had been locations the place “you didn’t must be a reliable anyone to return and take a look at one thing.” These workshops aimed to interrupt down disciplinary silos, encouraging dancers to interact with visible artwork and musicians with dance, addressing a “lack of curiosity from different fields”. The collaborations with Focus Artwork Gallery concerned pairing artwork shows with music and discussions, encouraging a deeper engagement with artwork objects.

Preethi emphasises, “It isn’t simply up to date dance, though each of us, being who we’re, maintain this competition collectively and subsequently it’s dance particular.”

Through the years, the competition has advanced to incorporate a “lab” element, recognising the dearth of formal schooling and documentation for up to date dance in India. Preethi explains, “We don’t have a faculty or a school the place you’ll be able to go and study the historical past of the shape or a selected choreographer’s strategy.” The lab, which varies every year, goals to bridge this hole, providing mentorship, residencies and alternatives for choreographers to develop their analysis and apply.

This 12 months’s lab, specializing in “dance dramaturgy,” is especially distinctive. Preethi and Padmini have invited Rustom Bharucha, a famend efficiency research scholar, to guide a workshop exploring dramaturgy past its conventional theatrical context. The workshop, open solely to choreographers, goals to supply a framework for understanding and making use of dramaturgy in up to date dance.

Moreover, Dramaturgy of Manufacturing by Danile Kok, Dance Nucleus Singapore, will conduct a workshop on the pragmatic elements of manufacturing for impartial artistes.

‘Is’ by Puneet Jewandah and�Ajay Parche traces the ever-shifting nature of human need.
| Picture Credit score:
Particular Association

The competition’s curation course of is meticulous, involving a jury of three to 4 individuals who shortlist candidates. This 12 months’s lineup consists of ‘Prime’ by Avantika Bahl, that includes dancers of their 60s and 70s, trying on the relationship between motion and the ageing physique on March 16. ‘The Double Invoice’ on March 20 options ‘Is’ by Puneet Jewandah and Ajay Parche and ‘Paradox of Platypus’ by Joshua Sailo and Abhaydev Praful.

A spotlight of this 12 months’s competition is a fee with Korean dancer Jee AE Lim, from Berlin who will collaborate with Indian dancers. Padmini, who was on the jury that awarded Jee AE the Pina Bausch Fellowship for Dance and Choreography, was captivated by her unusual venture exploring North Korean dance strategies. “We’re not simply bringing one thing readymade but additionally inviting Jee AE together with her inquiries to open it up”. Jee AE will carry out with Akila P, Sravanthi V, Vikram Iyengar and Pallavi Sriram, after a collaborative workshop.

Regardless of the challenges, Padmini and Preethi stay dedicated to the competition. Says Preethi, “It’s a accountability, however it’s additionally a deep need.”