The night of 28th November was filled with excitement as hundreds of students rushed to Dr. Reddy’s auditorium to see Abhinaya, Ashoka University Dance Society’s, end-semester showcase. This year’s showcase revolved around the concept of ‘tattvas’ or elements, narrated by a mysterious traveller that invited the audience “to witness how humans pull stories from the earth, water, fire, air, and space around them.”
The showcase began with an exploration of emptiness, a concept I found interesting as it is not typically included when discussing natural elements. The dancers interpreted emptiness as a necessity for creativity, tying relatively simple ideas of the natural world with complex human processes like creation.
A harsh red light illuminated two dancers, one facing the audience and one with their back to them. The lights changed to a warm yellow and the striking image of the two dancers was gone, as the Indian and Western core dancers appeared on stage to show the process of creation. A variety of dance styles were creatively explored in a short period of time. However, the connection between the personal (human creativity) and the elemental (emptiness) was slightly difficult to locate vis-a-vis the dance styles.
The lights changed to a dull white and familiar tunes of O Re Piya filled the air as four kathak dancers explored the concept of wind. They seemed to embody the wind itself, with a mixture of both flowy and sharp movements that grasped the air around them. They portrayed not only wind, but also love and yearning through a mix of somber and hopeful facial expressions. The song changed to Mori Atariya Pe Kaga Bole and movements became sharper, ending in chakkars that drew gasps from the crowd. This was one of my favourite elements, simply because the concept and dance flowed together seamlessly and seemed practically inseparable.
Although the narrator’s short introductions followed by dance pieces got a bit repetitive, the next performance complicated this narrative-dance style by introducing conflict between nature (portrayed by Bharatanatyam dancers of the Indian Core) and civilisation ( portrayed by Western core dancers). This face-off was interesting to see, departing from the simple narrative-dance story structure and introducing a mix of music too–with a collision of brash desi hip-hop and metal with flute infused traditional instrumentals.
Another conflict between humans and elements was depicted in the next sequence, focusing on water. This element was introduced with another crowd favourite song, Nanna Re by semi-classical dancers. A relatively new form of dance within Abhinaya—belly dance—was used to depict water. Krutika Srivastava’s (UG’27) precise movements immediately commanded the audience’s attention, before the conflict of this section came into play, and dancers in white (depicting humans) surrounded her to show the “complicated relationship humans hold with water” as told by the narrator. Novelty was what this section did best, through introducing a new dance style and furthering the idea of the human/nature conflict with a different element.
The narrator’s cheeky insertion of “Are you ready for your appointment with the devil?” led us to the final element, fire. This section took the audience to “Dante’s circles of hell”, attempting to portray seven deadly sins, which were portrayed through interactions between contemporary and jazz dancers of the Western Core through intricate formations. Flashing red lights, heeled dancers and songs like Me and the Devil and Me and Your Mama broke the stretch of repetitiveness with energy and intensity, despite the same narrative model as the earlier elements. The interactions between dancers to depict sins created a curious phenomenon, where they performed both for each other and for the audience, creating a kind of ‘doubleness’ that was exciting.
The last dance sequence did not involve an element and stood out to me because of the sheer vulnerability of the topic they choose to depict: losing your spark and trying to find it again. Insecurity, loss of selfhood, lack of confidence and struggles to find joy are rarely the “personal” ideas that find a stage presence.
Abhinaya put a unique twist on finding one’s spark by making dance an activity that sparks joy and re-ignites confidence. The lyrics of Naadan Parinde complemented this voyage as the dancers depicted “coming home” to a version of themselves that enjoyed dance and reconnected with it. A certain playfulness entered this sequence, as a medley of Bollywood songs like Beedi and Bulleya played in the background, illustrating the role of play in finding oneself. I found it especially interesting that this playfulness morphed into confidence and self-assuredness, shown through Kuthu, a form of street dance. The ability to get lost in dance and immerse oneself in the playfulness of performance was an interesting development on the journey to gaining confidence–Abhinaya tied together human experience and the role of dance in it beautifully.
Although dance seemed supplementary in the elemental storyline of the showcase, Abhinaya’s commitment to intricacy was unmatched. I can not help but wonder what the elements would have looked like as stand alone stories–the specificity of each story Abhinaya depicted would have been interesting to explore individually as they strayed away from the larger concept sometimes.
Human struggles and journeys also seemed disparate from the theme of natural elements, as some aspects of the showcase included humans directly interacting with elements (earth and water) while others included a creative reimagining of material elements (space and fire). However, the team’s creativity was on full display through the rich storylines they attempted to explore through dance, making for a memorable performance to end the semester.
Edited by Giya Sood and Srijana Siri
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