Isabelle Anna comes from France, but her journey is closely tied to India. She began studying dance at a very young age, starting with Bharata Natyam, the classical dance of South India, at the age of five. Her introduction to Kathak dates back to 1998, when Isabelle met Sharmila Sharma at the Mandapa center in Paris, a key place for lovers of Indian arts and culture. Three years later, the dancer decided to continue her studies in India, later obtaining a diploma in Advanced Studies from the Kathak Kendra University in New Delhi and official recognition from the Indian government as an overseas representative of Kathak. A scholar of the ethnic origins of Kathak and a student of Pandit Jaikishan Maharaj, from a renowned dynasty of Kathak artists, Isabelle Anna founded her company Kaléïdans’Scop last year.
I Speak Kathak is Isabelle Anna’s latest creation, performed by her alongside Quincy Charles. Originally from Trinidad, Quincy Charles is a virtuoso of Indian dance who studied in London and New Delhi. Pandit Jaikishan Maharaj, who assisted Isabelle Anna in the choreographic creation, also participates in the performance as a musician (Pakhawaj) along with tabla player Govind Chakraborty, Ghanshyam Sisodia (saranghi), and Hariprasad Chaurasia (flute). The performance invites a complete immersion in Kathak from choreographic, textual, and musical perspectives. At the festival, two of the four parts of the performance, Jhor and Mokshka, are showcased, which explore, according to the authors’ indications, “the sonic and visual universe of percussion, whether instrumental, vocal, or corporeal, and its power to create movement.”
Rhythmic impulses, dialogues between dancers and percussionists, onomatopoeic games, pure dance and narrative dance come together in a work that balances the sacred and the profane with a driving rhythm. At the festival, Isabelle Anna also presents Toros, My Bolero, and Trilogy. Toros is a suite of choreographic tableaux, specially reworked for the festival, inspired by the mythology and rituals associated with the figure of the bull from Mesopotamia, Greece, Persia, India, Andalusia, and Egypt. My Bolero revisits Ravel's famous score, originally created in the early 20th century for Ida Rubinstein, with choreography by Bronislava Nijinska. An obsessive masterpiece known to the general public for Béjart's version, which Isabelle Anna has rewritten with an original perspective. Trilogy, divided into Polifonica, Monodia, and Ritmica, is a new work conceived for the festival set to music by Luigi Nono.
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