The one-day exhibition showcases the work of Padmini Chettur. The dancer will present material from her recent choreography beautiful thing 2 in which the body is like a rational mechanical device that protracts into four-dimensional space. Structured around three performances that occur every two hours, the exhibition format is a proposition about the notion of presence across the disciplinary constructs of visual and performing arts. The body draws lines that hold and move vacant shapes, and the floor, as it were, is open to the question 'What is this object that appears?'
Date: 10th September 2011
Performances will start at 3pm, 5pm and at 7pm
Padmini Chettur (b. 1970) is a contemporary dancer whose training began in the traditional Indian dance form of Bharatanatyam. Between the years 1991 and 2001 she worked with the legendary choreographer Chandralekha, performing in the productions Lilavati, Prana, Angika, Sri, Bhinna Pravaha, Yantra, Mahakaal and Sharira. In 1994 she began her own artistic research. Her choreographic productions include Fragility (2001), 3 Solos (2003), Paper Doll (2005), Pushed (2006) and beautiful thing 1 (2009). Chettur departs from the classical repertoire of gestures, posturing and mythical tales, to shape an alternative, no less strict, condensed movement. Looking for complete detachment from her classical formative years, she abstains from the temptation to seduce, choosing instead, to convince. At the core of Chettur's practice is resistance. Her work unveils a taut vision that takes the contemporary dance of India, from what it is and how it should look, to radical dimensions. beautiful thing 2 premiered at the Singapore Arts Festival in June 2011.
Venue: G5A Laxmi Mills Compound, off Dr. E. Moses Road, Mahalaxmi, Mumbai 400011
Venue Partner: Mohile Parikh Center - The Contemporary
A Clark House Initiative.
Clark House Initiative is a collaborative practice about a place, which in sharing a junction with two museums and a cinema, mirrors the fiction of what these spaces could be. It is also an old shipping office of the Thakur Shipping Company that had links to countries in the Middle East, Eastern Europe the ex-Soviet Union and Japan. Run by two brothers, Madanmohan and Chatturbhuj Sharma, it participated in an internationalism based on the principles of the Non-Aligned Movement. It served as a pharmaceutical research base, and housed one of India's first IBM processors. The introduction of the Macademia nut in India came through its doors. Though based in Bombay, it has strong links to Bihar and Kerala. To date, it continues to serve as the office to this family owned business engaged in the cultivation of tea, pharmaceuticals and trade. Curatorial interventions in the space hope to continue, differently, this history of internationalism, experiment and research. Four people are part of this collaborative, Zasha Colah, Nida Ghouse, Zubin Pastakia and Sumesh Sharma.
*Mumbai Theatre Guide takes no responsibility for change in schedule
The one-day exhibition showcases the work of Padmini Chettur. The dancer will present material from her recent choreography beautiful thing 2 in which the body is like a rational mechanical device that protracts into four-dimensional space. Structured around three performances that occur every two hours, the exhibition format is a proposition about the notion of presence across the disciplinary constructs of visual and performing arts. The body draws lines that hold and move vacant shapes, and the floor, as it were, is open to the question 'What is this object that appears?'
