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March Dance 2022 - Season 4
Dance|Dance-Films, Dance-Works & much more over two weekends!
- Language Englisch
- Price Free entry. All are welcome!
March Dance 2022 - Season 4
Dance-Films, Dance-Works & much more over two weekends!
A joint project of the
Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai & Basement 21
Films & Discussions on March 11, 12, 13
Performances and Films by March Dance Grantees on March 18, 20
· In the 2022 edition, March Dance will be conducted over two weekends: March 11-13 and March 18 & 20.
· The first weekend (March 11, 12, 13) comprises three days of ‘performance-films’ including works of Merce Cunningham, Meredith Monk, Sasha Waltz, Padmini Chettur and others as well as ‘documentaries on choreographers’ like Pina Bausch, Maguy Marin and Chandralekha, along with a few conversations on some of the films.
· This year, March Dance sent out an open call offering a small grant to artistes to initiate a new performance work or complete a work-in-progress. Out of the many brilliant responses we received, we are now happy to announce four live performances for the second weekend (March 18, 20) by Malavika PC, Pradeep Gupta, Priyabrata Panigrahi and Vaanmadhi Jagan. The performance days will also have Meghna Bhardwaj and Ainesh Madan’s dance-films running in loops.
· All films and performances will be held at Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai.
For further details, please see the attached March Dance 2022 schedule.
Chennai, DATE: The Chennai-based artists’ collective Basement 21, investigating contemporary thought and action in various disciplines of arts, in collaboration with Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai, the official cultural institute of Germany presents the fourth Season of March Dance, an annual contemporary dance festival. The one-of-its-kind festival will have two sections this year – (1) Films: Dance-films and documentaries on choreographers along with a few conversations on some of the films (2) Performances by four contemporary artists, as part of the March Dance 2022 Open Call.
Concept note: After a two-year hiatus, March Dance returns this year to grapple with a world that has been on the edge of collapse and a reset of unimaginable proportions. How may we imagine this pause? Is it a pause or a rupture – one that forces us to delve deeper within ourselves to question and redefine our beliefs and our systems of working? Are we ‘back’? Or have we reached a place that we do not recognize?
March Dance 2022 asks this and more through an offering of dance films and production grants to works that have been stalled due to the pandemic in the last two years.
Film has become a prominent medium in the last few years, giving agency to creative expression when physical presence has all but disappeared. Looking at the medium of film as a chronicler of time as well as a catalyst that is constantly pushing the boundaries of dance-making and allowing itself to be re-interpreted in the process, the selection of films proposed take us on a journey through three days.
First day, we have the early experiments in dance and film with the works of Loie Fuller, Maya Deren, Meredith Monk and Merce Cunningham, leading up to a conversation between award-winning film-maker and academician, Hariharan and senior art critic and writer, Sadanand Menon, around excerpts from the iconic film Kalpana by Uday Shankar. Second day, the films screened will take us through a navigation of dance and site with the works of Sasha Waltz, Fitri Setyaningsih and Padmini Chettur. And the last day is dedicated to films that explore in part documentary style the artistic practice of choreographers Pina Bausch, Meg Stuart, Maguy Marin and Chandralekha.
All the films will be screened live at the Goethe-Institut Chennai auditorium.
This year the magic of live performance returns to March Dance with two performance grants awarded to Priyabrata Panigrahi (Bangalore) and Malavika PC (Chennai) who will present their work in performance at the Goethe-Institut. For both artistes, the challenge of sustaining their work through the pandemic runs deep into their processes and aesthetics, reflecting a new interiority in their forms.
In addition, two young artistes – Pradeep Gupta (Chattisgarh) and Vaanmadi Jagan (Chennai) will show-case their new work and build a discourse around it by being in conversation with Basement 21.
The March Dance 2022 Schedule
The Film section is thematically presented as follows:
Early Experiments in Dance and Film showcasing Loie Fuller, Maya Deren, Meredith Monk, Merce Cunningham. Also excerpts from Udhay Shankar’s legendary ‘Kalpana’ followed by a discussion with film-maker K Hariharan and Arts critic Sadanand Menon.
Dance-site Films showcasing Sasha Waltz, Meg Stuart, Fitri Setyaningsih and Padmini Chettur’s ‘A Slightly Curving Space’ finishing with a conversation with the film-maker Sara.
Documentation of Artistic Practice of Choreographers showcasing Maguy Marin, Pina Bausch und Indian contemporary dance pioneer Chandralekha’s explorations in dance through Sharira.
March Dance 2022 – Films & Discussions
The Performance section includes dance-works premieres:
1. Malavika PC (Chennai): Favourite Things
Favourite Things is a piece, which treats the floor of the stage as the medium on which the routes that thought takes are drawn. It is a process created to draw-mark-score this travel on the floor. The piece is a solo exercise of marking my thinking patterns on a plane as accurately and honestly as I can using chalk to keep track on the floor. The need to make this piece comes from wanting to find out and express how I see the activity-movement of thought playing out and the graphical possibilities such an exercise allows towards visual compositions.
2. Priyabrata Panigrahi (Bangalore): How Long Is Forever
Priyabrata saw the five bodies in the space as one fabric, as integrated and dynamic elements of breathing topography. One cloud, one swarm of harmonized yet competing energies. He wanted to implode and meditate. Both, simultaneously.
The question was how to use the simplest mechanics to express through bodies that listened to each other. Creating geometry and at the same time working with the anatomy and physics of the flesh and bones and of course gravity.
The topography moves. It maps itself in the space. It reaches far beyond its geographical limitations and it leaves traces. It reminds you why dance and poetry are so necessary for the human experience, particularly at a time of crisis, violence, separation and anarchy on the planet at large. As such watching this piece is not just awe inspiring but therapeutic too.
It creates new maps and deconstructs them without resisting. Its existence is based on moving, not claiming and not insisting, fixing and clinging to its current reality.
It thrives in the moment.
It lives only in the moment.
It is preoccupied with being and nothing more.
3. Vaanmadhi Jagan (Chennai): Kannimai
Kannimai is a theatre and dance work inspired, adapted and improvised from writer Ki.Rajanarayanan’s short story ‘Kannimai’. Three people related very close, celebrate each other’s memories and end up being stuck in the past, failing to connect at that moment. When time moves forward minds tend to stay put in a place. Emotions, thoughts and images carry us on our sails across the ocean of life against the axis of time. This work is a sail through memory lanes with longing and disconnect at the same time.
4. Pradeep Gupta (Villai): Bindadevi
Bindadevi Is about the behaviour of the human body – decisions, action and reaction. How a family treats a child, what difficulties the child faces while shifting out of their realm, when he grows up.
How do our parents take care of us; the way bones are needed to give shape to our body is the same way parents need to give shape to life, whether it is right or wrong.
How they help us to move forward and how they oppress and force us without even knowing.
How this body is trying to understand these simple exchanges and is trying to fix things on its own.
All Performances, Films and Conversations with artists will take place in Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai.
March Dance 2022 – Performances
The evenings with the films are free for all. For each evening of performance, if you would like to access the pre-booking Entry-passes (for each evening) or have other queries, please write to mail.basement21@gmail.com or send an SMS at 7595997568.
Pandemic Protocols @ Goethe-Institut Chennai
Dance-Films, Dance-Works & much more over two weekends!
A joint project of the
Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai & Basement 21
Films & Discussions on March 11, 12, 13
Performances and Films by March Dance Grantees on March 18, 20
· In the 2022 edition, March Dance will be conducted over two weekends: March 11-13 and March 18 & 20.
· The first weekend (March 11, 12, 13) comprises three days of ‘performance-films’ including works of Merce Cunningham, Meredith Monk, Sasha Waltz, Padmini Chettur and others as well as ‘documentaries on choreographers’ like Pina Bausch, Maguy Marin and Chandralekha, along with a few conversations on some of the films.
· This year, March Dance sent out an open call offering a small grant to artistes to initiate a new performance work or complete a work-in-progress. Out of the many brilliant responses we received, we are now happy to announce four live performances for the second weekend (March 18, 20) by Malavika PC, Pradeep Gupta, Priyabrata Panigrahi and Vaanmadhi Jagan. The performance days will also have Meghna Bhardwaj and Ainesh Madan’s dance-films running in loops.
· All films and performances will be held at Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Chennai.
For further details, please see the attached March Dance 2022 schedule.
Chennai, DATE: The Chennai-based artists’ collective Basement 21, investigating contemporary thought and action in various disciplines of arts, in collaboration with Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai, the official cultural institute of Germany presents the fourth Season of March Dance, an annual contemporary dance festival. The one-of-its-kind festival will have two sections this year – (1) Films: Dance-films and documentaries on choreographers along with a few conversations on some of the films (2) Performances by four contemporary artists, as part of the March Dance 2022 Open Call.
Concept note: After a two-year hiatus, March Dance returns this year to grapple with a world that has been on the edge of collapse and a reset of unimaginable proportions. How may we imagine this pause? Is it a pause or a rupture – one that forces us to delve deeper within ourselves to question and redefine our beliefs and our systems of working? Are we ‘back’? Or have we reached a place that we do not recognize?
March Dance 2022 asks this and more through an offering of dance films and production grants to works that have been stalled due to the pandemic in the last two years.
Film has become a prominent medium in the last few years, giving agency to creative expression when physical presence has all but disappeared. Looking at the medium of film as a chronicler of time as well as a catalyst that is constantly pushing the boundaries of dance-making and allowing itself to be re-interpreted in the process, the selection of films proposed take us on a journey through three days.
First day, we have the early experiments in dance and film with the works of Loie Fuller, Maya Deren, Meredith Monk and Merce Cunningham, leading up to a conversation between award-winning film-maker and academician, Hariharan and senior art critic and writer, Sadanand Menon, around excerpts from the iconic film Kalpana by Uday Shankar. Second day, the films screened will take us through a navigation of dance and site with the works of Sasha Waltz, Fitri Setyaningsih and Padmini Chettur. And the last day is dedicated to films that explore in part documentary style the artistic practice of choreographers Pina Bausch, Meg Stuart, Maguy Marin and Chandralekha.
All the films will be screened live at the Goethe-Institut Chennai auditorium.
This year the magic of live performance returns to March Dance with two performance grants awarded to Priyabrata Panigrahi (Bangalore) and Malavika PC (Chennai) who will present their work in performance at the Goethe-Institut. For both artistes, the challenge of sustaining their work through the pandemic runs deep into their processes and aesthetics, reflecting a new interiority in their forms.
In addition, two young artistes – Pradeep Gupta (Chattisgarh) and Vaanmadi Jagan (Chennai) will show-case their new work and build a discourse around it by being in conversation with Basement 21.
The March Dance 2022 Schedule
The Film section is thematically presented as follows:
Early Experiments in Dance and Film showcasing Loie Fuller, Maya Deren, Meredith Monk, Merce Cunningham. Also excerpts from Udhay Shankar’s legendary ‘Kalpana’ followed by a discussion with film-maker K Hariharan and Arts critic Sadanand Menon.
Dance-site Films showcasing Sasha Waltz, Meg Stuart, Fitri Setyaningsih and Padmini Chettur’s ‘A Slightly Curving Space’ finishing with a conversation with the film-maker Sara.
Documentation of Artistic Practice of Choreographers showcasing Maguy Marin, Pina Bausch und Indian contemporary dance pioneer Chandralekha’s explorations in dance through Sharira.
March Dance 2022 – Films & Discussions
The Performance section includes dance-works premieres:
1. Malavika PC (Chennai): Favourite Things
Favourite Things is a piece, which treats the floor of the stage as the medium on which the routes that thought takes are drawn. It is a process created to draw-mark-score this travel on the floor. The piece is a solo exercise of marking my thinking patterns on a plane as accurately and honestly as I can using chalk to keep track on the floor. The need to make this piece comes from wanting to find out and express how I see the activity-movement of thought playing out and the graphical possibilities such an exercise allows towards visual compositions.
2. Priyabrata Panigrahi (Bangalore): How Long Is Forever
Priyabrata saw the five bodies in the space as one fabric, as integrated and dynamic elements of breathing topography. One cloud, one swarm of harmonized yet competing energies. He wanted to implode and meditate. Both, simultaneously.
The question was how to use the simplest mechanics to express through bodies that listened to each other. Creating geometry and at the same time working with the anatomy and physics of the flesh and bones and of course gravity.
The topography moves. It maps itself in the space. It reaches far beyond its geographical limitations and it leaves traces. It reminds you why dance and poetry are so necessary for the human experience, particularly at a time of crisis, violence, separation and anarchy on the planet at large. As such watching this piece is not just awe inspiring but therapeutic too.
It creates new maps and deconstructs them without resisting. Its existence is based on moving, not claiming and not insisting, fixing and clinging to its current reality.
It thrives in the moment.
It lives only in the moment.
It is preoccupied with being and nothing more.
3. Vaanmadhi Jagan (Chennai): Kannimai
Kannimai is a theatre and dance work inspired, adapted and improvised from writer Ki.Rajanarayanan’s short story ‘Kannimai’. Three people related very close, celebrate each other’s memories and end up being stuck in the past, failing to connect at that moment. When time moves forward minds tend to stay put in a place. Emotions, thoughts and images carry us on our sails across the ocean of life against the axis of time. This work is a sail through memory lanes with longing and disconnect at the same time.
4. Pradeep Gupta (Villai): Bindadevi
Bindadevi Is about the behaviour of the human body – decisions, action and reaction. How a family treats a child, what difficulties the child faces while shifting out of their realm, when he grows up.
How do our parents take care of us; the way bones are needed to give shape to our body is the same way parents need to give shape to life, whether it is right or wrong.
How they help us to move forward and how they oppress and force us without even knowing.
How this body is trying to understand these simple exchanges and is trying to fix things on its own.
All Performances, Films and Conversations with artists will take place in Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan, Chennai.
March Dance 2022 – Performances
The evenings with the films are free for all. For each evening of performance, if you would like to access the pre-booking Entry-passes (for each evening) or have other queries, please write to mail.basement21@gmail.com or send an SMS at 7595997568.
Pandemic Protocols @ Goethe-Institut Chennai
- All guests should be fully vaccinated, and their vaccination reports should be duly shown on request.
- A thermal scanning will be done at the Entry.
- Face-mask must be worn by all non-performers all the time.
- Sanitizer Stands will be provided at appropriate points for use.
- Entry and Exit into the performance hall will be organized one by one.
- Physical distancing has to be strictly maintained on the corridor and while in the hall.
- Access to other spaces in the premises is possible only when required on prior permission.
- Air-conditioner will be @ 27-30 degrees, and the Entry Door of the performance hall will be kept open.
- If any member fails to observe the guidelines even after our request, they shall be immediately expelled from the venue.