At this gig, modern dance fuses with Indian music

PUNE: Even as a teenager,

Jonathan Hollander

was deeply influenced by Indian classical and several other dance forms he came across during his sojourn in Mumbai.

“It was a three-month stay and I was living with a family that was rooted in Indian classical art forms. This gave me an opportunity to watch the best performers of various Indian classical dance forms quite closely. Although I didn’t know then that I would embark on a journey of dance in the later part of my life, the visuals of those performances remain embedded in my mind,” said Hollander, who learnt to play the piano in his initial years.

Hollander formed the New York-based Battery Dance Company and went on to choreograph over 75 works that have found an audience across continents. As part of the Indian tour, Battery Dance Company will perform at an event organized by the Kalavardhini Charitable Trust. The performance will take place at the Yashwantrao Chavan Natyagruha on January 14.

Titled ‘The Durga Project’, the program is an amalgamation of Indian instrumental music and American contemporary dance portraying Indian mythology. “The performance is set to Raga Durga sung by Pandit Rajan and Sajan Mishra. In 1992, when I was in India, a friend in Ahmedabad gifted me a cassette that had medley of Indian classical vocalists. I’d heard Raga Durga for the first time in this collectionand I was left dumbstruck. The notes they hit created resonating vibrations that I still cannot put in words,” he said.

The performance was conceived in 2015 and premiered a year later. Till date, ‘The Durga Project’ has been staged in five cities across US and in two Sri Lankan cities. Speaking of the audience feedback,

Hollander

said, “Dance is an art of immediate response. One does not need to have the background knowledge.”

Woven into the raga is the amalgamation of

Bharatnatyam

and American contemporary dance that portrays the power of women. “The performance has three duets with women leading and male dancers following them. This is a metaphor for power as well as a contrast to other dance forms,” said Hollander.

The evening will see four performances — Shakti, which highlights the amalgamation of the dance forms of the East and West; solo performances by the members and a Karnataka-based Bharatnatyam dancer

Unnath

H R.

A fast-paced work by a South African choreographer will be staged on January 14. Apart from Pune, the troupe will also perform in Mumbai, New Delhi, Kolkata and Bengaluru.