'Painting in Space' Indian classical dance Malavika Sarukkai October 29, 2005
San Diego, California
Internationally renowned choreographer and dancer Malavika Sarukkai will premier a newly commissioned work at the San Diego Museum of Art on October 29, 2005. Performed in the 2,000-year-old, Indian dance form, Bharata Natyam, the work, titled ?Painting in Space,? was specially choreographed for SDMA and is the artist?s response to works of art on view in the Museum?s concurrent exhibition, Domains of Wonder: Selected Masterworks of Indian Painting Accompanied by her own four-person orchestra from India, Malavika will use her body as the medium to paint the space around her, a concept she calls drishya kavya, or visual poetry, to recreate selected paintings featured in Domains of Wonder. Steeped deep in mythology and history, her dance form takes the audiences beyond the paintings, into the stories and emotions of the imagery. A commentator will provide the basic storyline and insight into the related mythology at the beginning of the performance.
Easily the most accomplished Bharata Natyam dancer today, Malavika has been performing this very physically demanding and technically precise form of classical Indian dance for over three decades. Malavika has worked and polished her art to such perfection that it seems to have become an extension of her body. As one critic has observed, ?Malavika?s most remarkable achievement is her ability to obey the rules of Bharata Natyam, yet bring non-specialist viewers close to its heartbeat by making every moment seem personal, spontaneous and even contemporary.?
Added by Eternally Art on October 13, 2005
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Eternally Art
Each performance of Malavika Sarukkai is an event? She is without any doubt the most expressive of contemporary Indian dancers? One admires the brilliance and the elegance of the artist? the perfection of her technique? the liveliness and variety of her dance, which lies somewhere between ecstasy and sensuality, always of an exquisite femininity. ?Rene Sirvin, Le Figaro, Paris.
Alone worth the price of admission is Malavika Sarukkai. To see her dance and mime is like watching an impish goddess at play. ?George Jackson, The Washington Post.