When Dance Captures The Stillness in Movements

January low’s performance began in stillness. The Absence of Music was as Striking as the Lack of Elabrate Makeup or Ornamentation. Movements being listed in the audio track weded with dance poses but the performance estimated from the beginning a view of the dancer’s practice room. The audience was invited to witness the dancer committing sequences to memory, listening to instructions, making notes and finding the dance with.

One of two performances showcased in the platform 2025 (presented by alif arts consultancy at medi, bengai, bengai, bengaluru), January low’s pending ‘pending’ displayed the many litle danses a danche. Its open repetitions, vulnerability and the search for perfection to the gaze of the audience, accountomed to guzzling the “end product” of demanding preparation processes. In the final playing out of the dance, with music and other paraphernalia, the audience experienced both journey and destination in January’s performance.

Sooraj Subramaniam’s ‘Reflections of an Indian Dancer’ | Photo Credit: Mithun Pai

Sooraj Subramaniam’s ‘Reflections of an Indian Dancer,’ The other performance of the platform 2025, was rooted in similar themes but used its style to use and expelore the interiority of a dancer Relationship to three dance genres. The audience traveled with him as he located bharatanatyam, kathak and odissi in their history (without sidestepping complex), on the Indian map and in the Indian map and in the landscape of his body History). Unfolding Against a sparklingly written and narrated prose-poem, sooraj’s performance placed back-stories in the front. It reflected on loss; On being “Messed with” when home trust a distant, unknown entity. It described the “Finding of a new locus” that his dance education and practice had enabled.

While an earlier version of January’s’ pending ‘Premied in 2023 as’ a listening body,’ Sooraj first performed ‘reformed’ reflections of an Indian dancer ‘in 2021, Later Touring the Uk and Europe with each. ‘A listening body’ was a response to the changes in her “relationship with dance after the pandemic,” but ‘pending’ offred “more nuaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa Work, January Shares. Having been in search of “different entry points for the audience to encounter and experience odissi,” January says, “My Practice Odissi Condi Condi Condi Condi Condi Constince to Thrive East Malaysian Body as a mother to three child DIDI (Bijayini satpathy) Developed an agency in my body and practice that I have never experienceed before. This inspired me to create this work. ”

‘Pending’ Premied in 2023 as’ a Listening Body, | Photo Credit: Mithun Pai

She was “curious to share the unseen lab (emotional and physical) Between, “She Adds. “The biggest challenge as a mother has been consistent, to be kind to myself especially during the pauses (as a mother, there, there are many) and to stay present,” Says January. Her focus, therefore, is on “The Sacred Stillness” that Practice Brings to Her.

‘Reflections of an Indian Dancer’, Directed by Balbir Singh (of Balbir Singh Dance Company, UK) Sowing to “Make Indian Dance Accessible Without Oversimplifying ITS COMPLEFYING “The main challenge was maintaining the tone and pace of the prose-politics script while balance the genealogies of the dance styles agest an autobiographical backdrop.” He looks for “Synergy raather than conflict between idioms,” He says, likeing his immersive engine with three forms to “Being multilingual”. Lately, his practice has been cented on odissi, “Especially as I train with bijayini satpathy, and am relishing the fresh challenges and posisibilites it offers,” He Says.

Both ‘pending’ and ‘reflections of an Indian dancer’ narrated dance stories in a carefully crafted inside out language. MAPPING MIND and Body on Stage, they felt inclusive of the audience in ways that conventional dance performance are often not. Effectively using pause and Silence, they made thought through visible, evocatively opening up subtext to audience experience.