When you're as far away from India as we are - here in the Bay Area - it's easy to mistakenly think of that distant land as one unified place where you find one unified culture. Of course, the truth is much more complicated. India occupies over a million square miles of the globe and is home to over a billion of the earth's inhabitants. Over such a vast territory with such a large population, unity becomes a very abstract
I was first inspired by Kalidasa’s Meghadhuta (The Cloud Messenger) in 2009. At the time, I was exploring the role of the messenger in Indian texts and poetry. Often times the role of the messenger was simply stated – a person carrying a message from one lover to another. In dance, in some of the more commonly performed pieces, the messenger was often a sakhi (dear friend) of the nayika (heroine), and the nayika was usually desperately trying to convince
For me, creating work is often an outward presentation of a very personal journey. In reading Kalidasa’s Meghadhootha, I initially drew inspiration from many different translations, and literary commentaries. In reading the epic poem over and over again, there were certain verses that leapt out from the pages. These lines were coaxed by my own experiences to find comfortable and permanent places in my mind. When I came across these lines, I saw more than the words on the page.
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Apr. 20th, 2024 @ 6:00PMEvent Detail Button
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