Shobana Jeyasingh was a pioneer among a generation of Anglo-Indian choreographers who successfully blended the expressive beauty of traditional dances from their homeland with the gestures and explorations of contemporary dance. In contrast to another distinguished representative of this genre, Akram Khan, who developed a synthesis of Kathak – a classical dance from North India – and contemporary dance, Shobana Jeyasingh, originally from Madras, directed her expressive language towards merging Bharata Natyam, primarily practiced in South India, particularly in the Tanjore region and Madras, with the spatial and compositional methods of Western contemporary dance.
In her original blend, Bharata Natyam serves as a starting point: from brief phrases of pure Bharata Natyam, her work evolves in the studio through the author's manipulation, often pushed to the point of unrecognizability of the original movement. Shobana retains from classical Indian dance the elongation of the spine, always perfectly erect, the subtle movements of the joints, hands, and neck, as well as the percussive rhythm of the feet and the intermediate demi-plié position. However, these elements are transformed within a structure that finds new expressive modalities.
Since the founding of her company in 1988 in London, Shobana Jeyasingh has created about twenty works that have been showcased at prestigious European festivals, the Jacob’s Pillow Festival in Massachusetts, and in Durban, South Africa. The work presented at Oriente Occidente is her latest creation, "Flicker," produced this year alongside a revision of her 2004 work "Transtep," now renamed "Transtep 2005," which shares the evening in Rovereto with "Flicker."
"Transtep 2005" presents the same contrast between the stage space – set with blinding neon lights – and the composed, rigorous forms of dance that emerge under the black tunics of the women, in the expansive and sinuous movements of their arms. However, unlike "Flicker," the contrast is emphasized by the musical choice of Monteverdi's "Combattimento di Tancredi e Clorinda."
