Bells on Their Toes

The Nrityagram Dance Ensemble
The Joyce Theater
New York, New York
March 23, 2012

The Nrityagram Dance Company is a hybrid, a modern take on traditional Indian, specifically Odissi, temple dances.  That is, the company uses the historical technique in a theatrical manner.  For this visit, the three Odissi dancers were joined by two Kandyan dancers (Kandyan dance is also a temple dance) from Sri Lanka, and the two related styles made an interesting contrast.  The pieces had live music, traditional Indian musicians and singers, augmented by a Sri Lankan Kandyan drum.  The music, to western ears, combined a hypnotic droning sound (the bamboo flute) with rhythmic percussive sounds.  The music was punctuated by the dancer's delicate, bare-footed stomps augmented by tinkling ankle bracelets.  As the old rhyme says, "with bells on her toes, she shall have music wherever she goes."

  The Indian costumes, with their belted waists and ballooning pants, gave the three an almost Edwardian voluptuousness, and their dancing had a sculptural quality, looking like bas reliefs come to life.  The pure beauty of their dancing, with the precise, elegant hand movements (emphasized by red paint outlining their fingers, which seemed to leave a trail of light as they flicked them) and sinuous torsos, was really secondary to their stage acumen.  The dances, especially the solo by Surupa Sen to a poem about Krishna lamenting his treatment of Radha, was a vivid compendium of elemental emotions, and the dancers used their eyes and their expressions, as well as their bodies, to portray love, anger, fear, and sorrow.   This was theater at its peak.

The two Sri Lankan dancers (Thaji Dias and Mithilani Munasingha) were rangier and less sculptural in their movements.  Their poses flowed, their movements were stronger, and their jumps were bigger.  Their eager approach gave the impression of high-spirited adolescents kicking up their heels, and their charm was irresistible.  The final work featured all five dancers in a sort of a dance off, full of good natured competition, including a version of "Etudes", as the dancers hurled from one side of the stage to another.  There were no losers in this race, only winners, with the biggest winner being the audience.

copyright © 2011 by Mary Cargill