THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: ‘Sarpatatwam’ (Serpent Wisdom), a short dance documentary conceptualised, choreographed and performed by dancer Methil Devika, will have its Indian premiere at Ganesham, Thycaud at 11.15 am on Saturday. Based on verses composed by an 11th-century sage, the documentary unravels the mystery of the serpent myth through mohiniyattam.
“Like all creative work, this too originated out of intuition. I wanted to decode the serpent philosophy so much in vogue in Kerala and in other civilisations.
I started working on it, not for the sake of filming it, but for a performance at Mannarasala temple. It was after the performance that I thought of filming it in an attempt to archive and preserve Indian heritage,” says Devika.
Rajesh Kadamba, the co-director of the documentary, said she was very particular we don’t distort the dance.
“So the 13-minute dance was left untouched in the documentary. We had to find an interesting way of presenting it and after much discussion, we decided to add a fiction-based introduction and an interview at the end explaining the idea,” he said.
The documentary is produced by actor and MLA Mukesh under the banner of Chitrakutam. The cinematography is by Vipin Chandran and editing is by Alby Nataraj. The launch, which will be officiated by filmmaker Adoor Gopalakrishnan, will be attended by critics and experts from art, film, dance and music fraternity, including the dance duo V P Dhanajayan and his wife Shanta Dhanajayan.
The film had its premiere at Los Angeles, USA and was also screened for qualification to the Academy Awards, said Devika.
“Depending on the response on December 15, we will decide on the next step – whether to make the documentary accessible to people by releasing it on YouTube or via some other medium. We hope to hold more screenings in Delhi and Kochi,” said Devika, who is an adjunct professor at York University, Canada.