Love & peace, that's the global theme

It’s not everyday that Kolkatans find two talented artistes coming down from beyond the seven seas to perform here. So when dancer-choreographer Akram Khan and renowned performing artiste and Broadway star Sarah Jones came down here to stage their performances, the art-loving city flocked to the auditoriums to catch all the action.
“The crowd in Kolkata is very vocal, and that’s just what an artiste requires.It inspires me to perform better. Since I am the sole performer on stage, I feel that a vocal audience is part of my caste who share my creative energy,� explained Sarah.
She has come to Kolkata after a span of two years and felt that the political climate in her country has undergone a sea-change post September 11. “My ideas are unconventional but usually people from all walks of life can follow the message I try to spread through my productions,� she added.
In a world where diverse nationalities live together, harmony and peaceful co-existence are the buzzwords. “Our differences in race, caste and creed is our wealth and we should use this abundance of diversity to help in the progress of society, not hinder it,� said Sarah. “The goal is to present ideas. Sadly, there are a great deal of people who are not exposed to these ideas as much as we would expect. People come up to me after a performance and tell me that they never knew that things like this happened or laws like this exist. The presentation is important because that would resonate in people’s minds as opposed to speakers speaking at a conference,� felt Sarah.
The London-based Akram (who is of Bangladeshi origin) is in India touring with his full-length dance production Kaash. “The challenge was to get together a singular vision for the project. We had many interpretations of the ideas and we had to make it work towards a single narrative,� said Akram, who has previously worked with Pandit Ravi Shankar and Peter Brook in Mahabharata. “We used classical dance as a base, with contemporary dance as information to focus our project on. The most interesting part was to use the classical within the context of the contemporary,� he said.
While Sarah uses the stage to spread her message of love, Akram also believes that life is for the living — and living happily.
sriya.raychaudhuri@timesgroup.com