Taneira, Titan’s youngest brand, will be presenting Thari: The Loom, conceived and choreographed by award-winning Bharatanatyam dancer Padma Shri Malavika Sarukkai on October 13 at the Kamani Auditorium. After Delhi, the production will travel to Mumbai and Chennai.
Celebrated in India and overseas, Sarukkai is acclaimed for bringing a distinctive and meditative quality to her productions, using the language of Bharatanatyam. Her choreography is known for the incandescent beauty of dance together with the energised articulation of a contemporary mind.
Sarukkai began learning the art very early. In fact, this year she completes 50 years in dance. Terming her journey a ‘most memorable’ one, the famed danseuse says the craft has made her a more sensitive human being and made her realise the importance of relationships and has also made her look and respond to the environment differently.
“It has made me realise that dancing body is only a patra (vessel) which contains tremendous potential waiting to be released, and above all made me realise the small part we play in the larger vision of the cosmos,” says Sarukkai.
Stressing that dance is the spirit that infuses inspiration, wonderment, and compassion in her, she says that it gives meaning to her life. “When I touch the inner core of dance, I touch the deepest part of myself,” she says.
Sarukkai has had her share of turning points. When she was barely 16, she devoted her life to dance and moved away from the outside world. She was also the youngest solo dancer to be invited to perform at the Festival of India in London in 1982.
“I have been working on Thari: The Loom for over two years, so it’ll take me time to shift orientation and move on. I’ll wait for the seed of inspiration to take root once more,” she says.
The Production
Thari: The Loom is an innovative dance choreography inspired by the sari—the traditional hand-woven ‘unstitched garment’. The production explores the fundamental concepts that are shared between the two seemingly different but essentially connected disciplines of dance and weaving: space, structure, motif, symmetry, proportion, relationship, alignment. Interestingly, both disciplines work through coordination, rhythm, measurement, and design. The production extends the language of classical dance and is a confluence of traditional practice informed by contemporary sensibilities.