Outside, the sun had just set. In Chennai’s Museum Theatre, where contemporary dancers and the fraternity at large had congregated under a single roof, it seemed like dawn. Its calm, gentle and comforting light held the promise and possibility of a secure future in a space that is constantly searching, seeking, exploring, and experimenting. For the contemporary dance community in India, PECDA (Prakriti Excellence in Contemporary Dance Awards) marks the arrival of a much-needed forum that has the potential to nudge, nurture, nourish talent and craft in a way that the creation is world-class.
On August 25, six dancers from across India, presented excerpts—15-20 minutes maximum—from their works-in-progress. On August 26, five more are showcasing their ideas on stage. For the audience, PECDA is a sensory treat of sorts; more importantly, it’s an opportunity to witness a slew of hand-picked work that not only sparkles with a syntax and vocabulary of its own but also is rich and relevant to the society and world we live in. As contemporary creations, almost all of them come intelligently and interestingly coated with deep and meaningful layers that excite, push, provoke, disturb and in a way, allow us a peek into the minds of its creators.
“I’ve been thinking about PECDA for a while now,” says Ranvir Shah, founder of Chennai-based cultural organisation, Prakriti Foundation that instituted the award last December with a performance by Delhi-based dancer, Mandeep Raikhy, “We, at Prakriti, have been doing dance-related events for nearly fifteen years. We realised that dance, especially contemporary, was finding a space, although small but one of its own. PECDA is really a platform to spot and nurture talent and in turn, create a growing community of contemporary dancers.”
PECDA, that owes its birth to Karthika Nair, poet and dance producer from Paris, who is also its creative director, isn’t just an award that ends with the jury — comprising a mix of dancers, architects, academics, writers and critics — identifying the best in the business. “I’d say it’s really the beginning,” Shah says, “What PECDA intends to do apart from funding — the winning dancer/group will receive a prize money of `5 lakh — is a serious hand-holding of a talent who has potential and can raise his/her own bar through a year-long process of dialogue and mentorship.” Every year, PECDA will rope in a dance company — Indian or international — to engage with the winner of PECDA and help sharpen and scale up the work. PECDA’s debut mentor is none other than the Akram Khan Dance Company based in London. When the work is ready to be shown, it will premiere at The Park’s New Festival that tours six cities every year.
For the first edition, the response — from 20 entries, 11 were selected — has been warm. More than the numbers, the good news is that the community is raising its thumbs to the idea. “For any dancer or choreographer in this field,” Preethi Athreya from Chennai, who is also competing at PECDA, says, “Awards like these remind us that it is not a monologue that we are engaged in.” She recognises that contemporary practice needs “Greater participation from creators and spectators alike and an award like this, given the various capacities and experience of the jury, increases the sense of involvement of all those who have a stake in it.”
Fortunately, the award coincides with a time when contemporary dance is steadily finding a host of new participants. “Over the years,” says Chitra Arvind, artistic director of Bangalore-based Rhythmotion Dance Company and who showed her work, Flight from the Shadow yesterday, “There has been a considerable boom in the number of dancers pursuing dance as a profession. However, there aren’t enough art organisations who can support and fund the same. I think PECDA can help fill that gap.”
The event is also a showcase of the possibilities of creations in content and their adaptations in dance. Delhi-based dancer, Giles Chuyen, who has been “exploring movement in India since 1994”, and will present his work this evening, developed a work called Dharma exclusively for PECDA. “It’s about going beyond dualities,” he says, “It’s about exploring the two questions, what is dance and who am I. In a way, these two questions are actually just one.” Mehneer Sudan, who created Inside Bodies during her choreography residency at Delhi’s Gati Dance forum last year, avers she is “still working on developing it further”. Inspired by her encounters with “maalishwaalis, the work explores points of contact between the masseuse and the client and investigates relief and surrender, intimacy within unfamiliarity and the effect of touch on the body.
Against the backdrop of PECDA, already recognised exponents of the form are further pushing the creative envelope. Internationally acclaimed, Chennai-based contemporary dancer Padmini Chettur’s untitled work that will premiere in 2013, and who will show parts of the work this evening, reveals she has been engaged with the work since January. “The format is still finding its feet,” she says. When ready, the work will emerge interestingly as an installation of bodies in a room. “Over the three hours that one can visit this performance,” she explains, “The dancers assume different configurations within the space, always allowing absolute mobility to the viewers as well.”
While Padmini and her work may resonate with the jury and the audience, PECDA is particularly interesting because it attempts to assemble a slew of artistes, old and new, experts and aspirants, and present them on a common stage. “Competition in art can create a sense of negativity within the community no doubt,” notes Claire Verlet, deputy director for dance at the renowned Theatre de la Ville, France, and who is also on the jury for PECDA, “But let’s face it, there is competition anyway.” She likens this award to a dance competition called Danse Elargie that Theatre de la Ville founded in 2010. Open to artistes from all disciplines and from all over the world, who have something to do or say about dance today, the only rules are “Ten minute maximum and not more than three persons on stage. When the contest debuted, we faced a lot of flak and criticism from the dance community in France,” Claire writes in an email, “Today, after the second edition, everyone recognises that the benefits far outweigh its shortcomings.” That’s probably the way to perceive PECDA as well. After all, in life, something is better than nothing. Right?