blood run performance

Here is the footage of blood run from my performance at Highways in June 2016!

password: "bloodline"

Open round 2: Intergenerational Art Making

Here are two artworks and a poem I made about what it is like for me being pregnant from prompts from a book called "Birthing From Within" by Pam England. The poem is describing the second art piece.

Being Pregnant, 30 weeks

Little curling seedling,

I try to imagine you inside me,

but your tender development eludes me.

As I crane to grasp the very concept of you,

the boundaries of my being expand,

making room for your ever reaching tendrils.

As we ride the turbulent tides together,

we are guided by instinct, intuition,

and my sea creature heart who flips effortlessly through the waves beside us.

I made the paintings in an art making session with my Mom, where she also made art about pregnancy, childbirth and the future baby. 

I am becoming aware that I am on a path of inter-generational healing since my Mother has come to live with me last Oct.  Some of it has manifested in my own poetry, some of it has been in a parenting class with my sweetheart, and now this art making was the first time I was able to include her in the process as well.  Thus I am thinking of the following project...

Project idea:  

My sweetheart, Mom, and I (and maybe other family members), all write a letter/poem to our own childhood self, and then another to the  unborn baby in my belly.  We then excerpt one to three lines from our letter to the baby, and each of us writes the excerpts on my belly (probably with facepaints).  If we do each of these separately, we can also decorate the belly as we wish.  However, we may wish the excerpts to somehow be in conversation with each other.    I imagine documenting this with a series of photographs of each person drawing on my belly (or maybe video which could capture any movement of the fetus as well, but other then that I think photos are enough).  

Feedback:

Any ideas for the prompts or parameters of my project idea to make it clearer or more interesting?  

Any visions of environment?

Any other ideas or thoughts?

Queering Abhinaya Assignment 7: Yearning to Bloom

For this assignment I was paired with Cynthia who helped me think the through choreographic ideas and the trajectory of a new piece that I was collaborating on with visual artist, Sayon Syprasoeth, and dancer, Jack Nguoun, for a closing reception of "Roots and Branches," an exhibit featuring contemporary Cambodian visual artists at the Greenly Art Space in Long Beach, CA.

Here is a video of our performance at the closing.
Password:  bloom

Yearning to Bloom from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.

1.  What drew you in?  Or what did you enjoy about the performance?

2.  What would you like to see developed more? 

3.  How did you interpret our use of the masks?  You may not be able to tell, but they had gold on them to mimick the sculpture's texture.  Did it bother you that they are primarily white?  Any ideas about how we might use them more effectively (or not at all).

4.  How did you feel about the interaction of Bharatanatyam, Khmer Classical dance, pedestrian movement, and poetry?  Did anything seem too mime like?

5.  How did you feel about the use of the various music styles, especially the padam "Velavare" (which is the second music). 

6.  What aspects, if any, do you feel might read as "Queering Abhinaya" ?

7.  Do you have any other ideas to offer for growing future performances?  In particular, are there any ways that we could have interacted with the sculpture that you would have been interested to see and that might add to the meaning of the piece?  And did the trajectory feel complete, or do you think something more is needed?

Queering Abhinaya Assignment 6: Shyamala's intergenerational explorations

I was paired with Sandra and we discussed her interest in framing connections between some of our assignments in the German context through writing and perhaps even a video installation of the work.  I believe she was interested in the idea or action of problematizing exoticisms as a common theme for some of the solos, and thus creating a transnational alliance between us. 

I was interested in deepening some of my work.  A few months ago, my mother moved in with me and I found out that I am pregnant, thus, I have been strongly aware of my position between generations.  Thus, the inter-generational nature of the study I did for assignment 4, "alternative translations" seems the most interesting to me to continue at this moment.  For my study, each Post Natyam member interpreted some the words describing how to do the dance movement from a padam that I had learned from my first Bharata Natyam guru, Medha Yodh.  Our interpretations were unusual, quirky, and at at times subversive.   I had planned to thread my favorites of each of our interpretations together into a new version of the padam...  thinking about how a new generation might re-interpret and re-purpose this dance that was passed on to me through Medha, from her guru, Balasaraswati.

Additionally I'm creating a new piece in collaboration with a Cambodian American visual artist,

Sayon Syprasoeuth and a Cambodian American dancer, Jack Nguon.  In relation to the "alternate translations." I'm thinking it would be interesting to see how Jack might interpret the text in his classical Cambodian dance influenced body.  I also have been doing some inter-generational writings that I feel will help inform the piece, either with sound or images.  

Themes exploring: pleasure and discomfort of waiting, transformation, life cycle of seed to flower blossoming/birthing, inter-generational (dis)connections

Below is an image of a sculpture we'll be working with: 

Sculpture by Sayon Syprasoeuth (our costumes hopefully will be similar variations of this)

Texts to draw from:  

Velavare (Padam I learned from Medha Yodh), the gist is about a maiden waiting for her lord.  Perhaps the music itself would be interesting to use.

 Two poems I've written recently:

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love letter at week 6

My first signs of you were my queasy belly and your beating heart-

Fast, erratic, a pulsing white light, a beacon of your existence. 

My emotions ran wild.

Your heart in my belly, making it flutter.

My gasping breath making you falter.

The realization that you were all heart was so immense…

This tiny light leading you into the world, before all thought, before all reason, guided only by your inner rhythm.

And as I cradled you in my womb,

Your love, so vast, encompassed me.  

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Free-fall at 11 weeks

S/he is tumbling, free-falling except for the pulsing bungee cord of flesh that connects her to me.  Neither of us holding on with our limbs, connected instead from our insides out.

There is no light here to see, all is intuited from behind thinly shut lids.   

He does not feel my singular pain, oblivious to the sacrifices of one, 

but instead is tuned into the rhythms of my breath, the pulsing of my blood, 

and the pull of gravity within an ever changing rotating sphere of existence. 

A packed, but organized, freeway flows between us, 

where ancestors riding water buffalo intermix with sturdy caballeros, 

and still others traverse in dusty covered wagons. 

None are surprised by each others existence, nor by the occasional sighting 

of never before seen modes of transportation passing at lightening speed. 

Testing her strength and agility, 

each movement is magnified in tight quarters. 

Falling, twisting, turning until he bounces 

against the soft womb walls in a soft reverberating, rebound. 

Our bodies, united together, 

share unfathomable mysteries, 

that despite our interconnection, 

will lead to unavoidable separation.

 Feedback:

1.  What ideas/images stand out to you, especially ones that might inspire movement or visual images/actions, from...

a. the sculpture

b the week 6 poem

c. the week 11 poem 

2.  Do you have any thoughts about ways to tie or layer the sculpture, poems and Padam together?  

3.  Any other thoughts?

Long-distance Process, Long-distance Products

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In evaluating our long-distance process, we realize that there have been many outcomes of our work together.  We all felt the process was extremely rewarding, despite the fact that we did not achieve an evening length show with all four of us as live performers.  So that we are able to best assess what came out of it, here is a list of the many outcomes so far, along with production history and some ideas for future expansion:

I. LIVE PERFORMANCE WORKS

EVENING-LENGTH:

Sunoh! Tell me, Sister

An evening-length work combining multimedia storytelling and contemporary Indian dance theater to embody women’s stories of being silenced, finding voice, and the importance of sisterly community.  Created by the Post Natyam Collective with Carole Kim (multimedia design), Loren Nerell (music), Ravindra Deo (music), Mona Heinze (dramaturgy), and Sangita Shresthova (dance-media collaboration). The piece currently may be performed as a duet (Cynthia and Shyamala) or a trio (Cynthia, Shyamala, and Anjali).

Trio version performed at:

-National Asian American Theater Festival, Inner-City Arts, 6/24/11 and 6/26/11

Duet version performed at:

-University of Wisconsin-Madison, Madison WI, 4/30/11
-University of Georgia, Athens GA, 4/21/11

-University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana, Champaign IL, 4/17/11

-Miles Memorial Playhouse, Santa Monica CA, 4/1/11-4/3/11

In-progress showings:

-Bootleg Dance Festival, Bootleg Theater, Los Angeles CA, 3/11.  Cyn/Shy.

-NET Micro-Fest: LA, Atwater Village Theatre, Los Angeles CA, 12/10.  Cyn/Shy.

-TeAda Works, Nate Holden Performing Arts Center, Los Angeles CA, 11/10.  Cyn/Shy.

-IGNITE Festival of Contemporary Dance, Little Theatre Group, New Delhi India, 11/11/10.  Cyn/Sandra.

Ideas for further expansion: 
-Create and perform other duet/trio versions of the show.
-Curate a related show (maybe of shorter works) that includes some PN material and some material contributed by local collaborators.

SHORTER WORKS:

Ranri (widow/courtesan)

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Combining contemporary abhinaya (emotional expression in Indian dance), intimate video projections, poetic text, and haunting electro-Hindustani music, Ranri (widow/courtesan) evokes the story of Rasulanbai, a child widow from the 1960s who resisted abuse by her in-laws by escaping to become a courtesan.  Sensual, poignant, and filled with unexpected twists of expectation, the courtesan’s world is unexpectedly revealed as a place of female power and queer female-female love.  Rasulanbai’s story was taken from Oldenburg’s fieldwork on the last remaining courtesan communities of Lucknow, India.  Lucknow, famous for its singing and dancing courtesans, was one of the historical centers of North Indian classical music and kathak dance.  Currently a duet by Cynthia and Shyamala, earlier versions of the piece include a solo by Shyamala, a solo by Cynthia, and a duet by Cynthia and Sandra.

Performed in SUNOH! Tell Me, Sister and at:

-Re-tracing Histories, Re-dancing the Past, Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica CA, 2/11.  Cyn solo.

-Post Natyam Unveiled, Khmer Arts Salon Series, Khmer Arts Academy, Long Beach CA, 5/10.  Shy solo.

-IGNITE Festival of Contemporary Dance, Little Theatre Group, New Delhi India, 11/11/10.  Cyn/Sandra duet.

-DISHA, Rabindranath Tagore Centre, Indian Council for Cultural Relations, Kolkata India, 8/10.  Shy solo.

Learning to Walk Like Radha

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improvised choreography and performance: Cynthia Ling Lee
inspired by Simone Forti’s improvisation structures

traditional kathak material learned from Bandana Sen

In this semi-autobiographical solo performance, a talking dancer negotiates a really long piece of cloth while humorously commenting on the conflicts she experienced as a Taiwanese-American feminist attempting to learn classical kathak in Calcutta.   The cloth transforms from a braid of long hair, to the walls of her dance guru’s house, to the holy river Yamuna, to a dupatta tied across her chest, twisting and tripping her as she butts up against the overwhelming love and expectations of her guru and tradition.  Faced with the requirement to perform gender – to walk like Radha – in ways that she cannot quite grasp or agree with, she finds herself torn between competing impulses to act as obedient disciple, earnest anthropologist, and stubborn feminist. 

Performed in SUNOH! Tell Me, Sister and at Re-tracing Histories, Re-dancing the Past, Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica CA, 2/11/11-2/12/11.

My Silent Cry/The Thorn, the Leaf, and the Butterfly: Based on the story of a domestic violence survivor, The Thorn, The Leaf, and the Butterfly takes a decidedly contemporary look at the tradition of abhinaya (emotional expression in Indian dance).  Gripping, visceral movement images of choking, struggle, and freedom combine with live improvised poetry inspired by the 18th century Indian poet, Ksettraya.

ADD PERFORMANCE HISTORY

Idea for further expansion: Tour with Uma to women’s shelters.

Lost and Found
Inspired by Simone Forti’s method of Logomotion (improvised talking while dancing), in this piece, a woman reclaims her voice.  She revisits the innocent optimism of her childhood and takes us on a journey of loss and rediscovery.

Performed in SUNOH! Tell Me, Sister.

Mixed Bag

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Oriental dolls, dominatrix gurus, helpless victims, and mail-order brides duke it out in a satirical world where nothing is sacred and identities/costumes can be changed at the drop of a hat.  Mixed Bag collides contemporary Indian dance with political performance art, as the performers explode sexualized, exotified stereotypes of women.  Their tools?  Black leather, audience lap dances, bad accents, plastic mannikins, classical Indian rhythms, and an extra-large dose of belly laughter. 

Performed in SUNOH! Tell Me, Sister and as part of the following lec-dems:

-“Gender, Sexuality, and Performance.” Women’s Studies class. UW-Madison, Madison WI, 4/11. 

-Dance Appreciation Class. U. Georgia, Athens GA, 4/11.

Marks

In a poetic layering of live camera feed, projected text, pre-recorded video, and live bodies, Marks creates a mysterious landscape in which women’s bodies are written upon; where labels are negotiated, toyed with, and evaded.  Developed by Carole Kim and inspired by s k i n.

Performed in SUNOH! Tell Me, Sister.

Idea for future expansion: Create a durational performance installation of Marks, perhaps with audience participation.

Adda with the Ancestors

This improvisational duet enacts an “adda” or conversation between two dancers with hybrid histories, the real and imagined ancestors of their dance memories, a guardian, and a curious friend.  Score by Carol McDowell; performance by Cynthia Ling Lee and Shyamala Moorty.

Performed in Trace, Instruments of Risk Series, Sea and Space Explorations Gallery, Los Angeles CA, 11/09.

When We’re Alone

This solo incorporates inverted Bharata Natyam, rhythm, and voice to express the emotional crisis of a young South Asian woman struggling to untangle herself from cultural and familial webs.  Created and performed by Shyamala Moorty.

Performed as part of Carrie’s Web and at:

-Trace, Instruments of Risk Series, Sea and Space Explorations Gallery, Los Angeles CA, 11/09.

-Moving Beyond Form, Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia PA, 2/10.

II. DANCE FOR CAMERA

bitter salt

A hand tracing patterns in the sand, poetic text, and haunting music evoke the story of Rasulanbai, a child widow from the 1960s who resisted abuse by her in-laws by escaping to become a courtesan. Rasulanbai’s story was taken from Oldenberg’s fieldwork on the last remaining courtesan communities of Lucknow, India.  By Cynthia Ling Lee.

Screened as part of Ranri and SUNOH! Tell Me, Sister.
Idea for future expansion: Make into a stand-alone dance video.

Cyber Chat Series

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Created by Anjali, Sandra, Cynthia, and Shyamala in collaboration with Sangita Shresthova, this series of dance-for-camera shorts takes inspiration from Post Natyam’s extensive use of SKYPE to connect administratively, creatively, and as friends across distance.

Cyber Chat 1.1

An artistic version of the Post Natyam Collective’s administrative meetings, which are held via SKYPE conference call - complete with dropped calls, baby cries and kathak rhythms.   

Screened in SUNOH! Tell Me, Sister and at: 

-NET Micro-Fest: LA, Atwater Village Theatre, Los Angeles CA, 12/10 

-IGNITE Festival of Contemporary Dance, Little Theatre Group, New Delhi India, 11/11/10

Cyber Chat 1.0:  An earlier version of Cyber Chat 1.1 that was edited as a loop of solos, duets, and a quartet.  video coming... (duet version of Shy and Cyn, solo version of Anj as examples)

Screened at:

-Trace, Instruments of Risk Series, Sea and Space Explorations Gallery, Los Angeles CA, 11/09.

-home is where, Natya/STEM, Bangalore India, 12/09

Cyber Chat 2.0

Rhythmic syllables give rise to English as four classical dancers express sisterly sympathy for each other’s shared difficulties via SKYPE.  Screened in SUNOH!  Tell Me, Sister.

Idea for future expansion: Create more Cyber-Chats to add to the series, including a Cyber-Chat PN Manifesto.

s k i n

This dance-for-camera work ponders on the conflicted image of India's dancer-courtesan through the literal and imagined inscription of post-colonial theory on her eroticized and yet vulnerable body.  By Sangita Shresthova and Cynthia Ling Lee.

Screened as a layer of Marks in SUNOH! Tell Me, Sister and as a stand-alone work at:

-Re-tracing Histories, Re-dancing the Past, Highways Performance Space, Santa Monica CA, 2/11/11-2/12/11.

-TOO MUCH! Queer Marathon, Dance Mission, San Francisco CA, 1/23/11

-IGNITE Festival of Contemporary Dance, Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi India, 11/11/10

Snow and Leather (NAME?)

by Sandra Chatterjee

ADD DESCRIPTION and ideas for future expansion, if any

]wrist[

Anjali Tata’s dance-for-camera short is composed of close-ups on the hands (caressing animal-like choking wrist/neck suddenly wild, clean us off, dirty girl).  It has been screened as a stand-alone piece, been projected on a live dancer in Ranri, and been integrated into performance as a live feed in the Thorn, the Leaf, and the Butterfly:

Screened at:

-Post Natyam Unveiled, Khmer Arts Salon Series, Khmer Arts Academy, Long Beach CA, 5/10.  Lec-dem.

-Moving Beyond Form, Asian Arts Initiative, Philadelphia PA, 2/10. With live tabla accompaniment (password: wrist)

-Trace, Instruments of Risk Series, Sea and Space Explorations Gallery, Los Angeles CA, 11/09.  Black and white video installation with poem stenciled in graphite and paint.  

Idea for future expansion: Create a video installation of various recordings of live feeds.

III. ART INSTALLATION

Trace

How do our bodies remember, dismember, and reshape the traces of the past?  Trace grapples with a fragmented South Asian aesthetic legacy through a contemporary lens, combining live performance, interactive installation, video, and poetic documentation.   By Cynthia and Shyamala, with long-distance contributions from Sandra and Anjali and performances by local collaborators.  Includes traces from Post Natyam’s transnational creative project.

Performed at Instruments of Risk Series, Sea and Space Explorations Gallery, Los Angeles CA, 11/09.

Idea for future expansion: Create other versions of Trace in different locales, eg by Sandra with Johanna in Munich.

IV. ARTBOOK

Harassing the Sanskrit Heroine
This book interrogates the North Indian light classical song form of thumri, revealing the form's historical layers, erasures, and troubled eroticism by combining poetic text and photographic image.  By Cynthia Ling Lee with photography by Shyamala Moorty.

Exhibited at Trace, Instruments of Risk Series, Sea and Space Explorations Gallery, Los Angeles CA, 11/09.

V. SOCIAL/INTERACTIVE MEDIA

Post Natyam's blog, is an online creative workspace for the collective.  It also serves to document our process and invites outside collaborators and the wider public to dialogue about our work-in-process.  The work shown here is raw, the questions about process are being grappled with constantly, and we give each other feedback while inviting the public to do so as well.  
  

VI. SCHOLARSHIP/EDUCATION

ARTICLE
"Blogging Choreography: Collective Long-Distance Choreographic Practice." Unpublished article by Cynthia Ling Lee, Sandra Chatterjee, Shyamala Moorty, and Anjali Tata.  2010.

This paper discusses the unconventional choreographic methodology the Post Natyam Collective has developed to collaborate on South Asian aesthetic forms and concepts across geographical distance.  Our long-distance collaboration uses internet technology to traverse multiple time-zones, disciplines, cultural contexts, geographic locales, and movement forms.  We have created a blog to facilitate this process among the collective members, as well as to enable dialogue about our process, our in-progress work, and the issues underpinning our work in the public sphere. The paper intersperses selected excerpts of thae blog with italicized theoretical commentary, reflection, and contextualization. 

Idea for future expansion: Rewrite the paper and submit to journals.

TALKS/LECTURE-DEMONSTRATIONS

“SUNOH! Tell me, Sister: Feminist Approaches, Collective Choreography and Long Distance Collaboration.”
In collaboration with her colleagues from the Post Natyam Collective, Sandra Chatterjee
has been working on the project Sunoh! Tell Me, Sister. The choreographic project was developed via a long-distance process by choreographers who are geographically dispersed and brings together their different aesthetic approaches as well as their distinct feminist approaches. Starting from the artistic legacy of South Asian courtesans, the contemporary South Asian dance and video project also brings together autobiographical narration and outcomes of activist work with survivors of domestic violence. This paper will reflect the negotiation of those different feminist approaches, historical, autobiographical,
and community activist, as the collective members strive to bring them together in one choreographic project. Ppresented by Sandra at Civilmedia 11: Community Media For Social Change: Low Threshold - High Impact, Salzburg, 14 March 2011.

“Gender, Sexuality, and Performance: The Female Body in South Asian Performance.”

A lec-dem tracing gender and sensuality in SUNOH! Tell Me, Sister, combining lecture on courtesan history with teaching abhinaya (hidden tamarind) and demonstration of Mixed Bag.

Presented by Cynthia and Shyamala at Christine Garlough’s women’s studies class.  UW-Madison, Madison WI, 4/11. 

Idea for future expansion: Create an online scholarly conference on courtesans or other issues relevant to SUNOH!  Tell Me, Sister or PN in general.

“Cliches, the Internet, and Contemporary Indian Dance?” 

A lec-dem giving a general introduction to Post Natyam and SUNOH!  Tell Me, Sister.  Included lecture, screening Cyber Chat 1, teaching BN basics, and performing Mixed Bag.

Presented by Cynthia and Shyamala for dance appreciation classes.  U. Georgia, Athens GA, 4/11.

„Blogging Choreography: Long-Distance Choreographie und das künstlerische Vermächtnis indischer Kurtisanentraditionen.” 

In Zusammenarbeit mit ihren Kolleginnen von der Post Natyam Collective arbeitet Sandra Chatterjee im Moment an einem Projekt mit dem Titel Sunoh! Tell Me, Sister, welches sich im südasiatischen Tanz mit der Hinterlassenschaft einer Kurtisanentradition auseinandersetzt. Das Projekt wird in einem long-distance-Prozess entwickelt, durch welchen sich die Choreografinnen, die sich in verschiedenen Ländern befinden, einbringen können. Sandra Chatterjee führt derzeit in Salzburg ihre Forschungstätigkeit am Projekt weiter und wird in ihrem Vortrag vor allem auf die “long-distance” choreographische Arbeitsweise des Kollektivs eingehen.

 Contemporary Artist Talk by Sandra given at Interuniversitärer Schwerpunkt Wissenschaft und Kunst (Paris-Lodron Universität und Universität Mozarteum), Contemporary arts & cultural production. 15.12.2010; Atelier, Wissenschaft und Kunst.

„Rasa Re-routed: Choreographische Übersetzung und das künstlerische Vermächtnis indischer Kurtisanentraditionen.” Getanzte (Liebes)Lieder aus dem Repertoire der Kurtisanentraditionen sind aktiver Teil der klassischen und populären indischen Tänze. Von Bharatanatyam bis Bollywood zirkulieren sie, in re-interpretierten Versionen, in- und außerhalb des Subkontinents. Der Vortrag, angelehnt an ein konkretes choreographisches Projekt, widmet sich einer kritischen Betrachtung der (re-interpretierten) künstlerischen Vermächtnisse im Kontext eines transnationalen, zeitgenössischen, choreographischen Prozesses.
Given by Sandra as part of the Scientist in Residence program. 25. November 2010; Gendup, Zentrum für Gender Studies und Frauenförderung, Universität Salzburg

"Post Natyam Unveiled"
This lec-dem articulated Post Natyam’s long-distance collaborative process through words and video.  It was bracketed by performance of choreographic works reflective of our individual choreography and smaller scale local collaborations. 

Presented by Cynthia and Shyamala as part of the Khmer Arts Salon Series.  Khmer Arts Academy, Long Beach CA, 5/22/10.

Idea for future expansion: Create a low tech, lec-dem version of SUNOH suitable for academic conferences.

MASTER CLASSES

Contemporary Indian Dance

This workshop combined a yoga-based release warm-up with kathak fundamentals and demo of a phrase from Mixed Bag.

Co-taught by Cynthia and Shyamala for:

-Beginning Modern, U. Illinois, 4/11

-Intermediate/Advanced Modern, U. Illinois, 4/11

-Contemporary Dance III, U. Georgia, 4/11

Idea for future expansion: Document more fully and add to curriculum.

Remembering "Trace"

In "Trace," Los Angeles met South Asian courtesan poetry met Skype in a combination of art installation, live performance, and audience participation structures.  We were blessed to have a warm, curious, and diverse cross-section of the visual/performance art, dance, theater, and music communities, along with loved ones attend.

First, these were the artworks:

Make Your Own Padam - The love poetry performed by courtesans and by Indian classical dancers is part of a living oral tradition that changes and adapts to new contexts and historical circumstances.  We invite you to create your own poem out of the fragments of courtesan poetry scattered on the floor, which includes works by Ghalib, Faiz Ahmed Faiz, Bindadin Maharaj, Ksetrayya, and Annamaya.  Mixed among the fragments are blank pieces of paper that may be filled in with your own word(s).  Please tape your poem to the wall when finished! 

Cyber Chat, Cyber Spat - This dance-for-camera work, which sprang out of our long-distance collaboration process, is an artistic version of the Post Natyam Collective’s administrative meetings, which are held via webcam conference calls on Skype - complete with dropped calls, baby cries and kathak rhythms.  The work was filmed in four separate geographic locales -  Munich, Kansas City, Long Beach and Santa Monica - with video editorial arrangement by Sangita Shresthova and additional sound engineering by Loren Nerell.

]wrist[ - Cynthia Lee’s poem imaginatively expands upon a single word, “wrist,” from the thumri, “Kahe Rukata,” in a writing style inspired by experimental language poets Harryette Mullen and Gertrude Stein.   Anjali Tata’s video translates the poem into a dance composed of close-ups on the wrist (caressing animal-like choking wrist/neck suddenly wild, clean us off, dirty girl) and is a product of the Post Natyam Collective’s long distance collaborations, where members translate each other’s work into their own artistic products.

Harassing the Sanskrit Heroine - This artbook, written and designed by Cynthia Lee with photography by Shyamala Moorty, combines poetic text and photographic image to explode the North Indian light classical song form of thumri.  Thumri was performed by high-class North Indian courtesans and is danced by modern-day kathak dancers.  These imaginative contemporary translations reveal the historical layers, erasures, and troubled eroticism embedded in the thumri form.

And then, of course, there was the live performance, which unfolded as follows.  

The audience started outside on the sidewalk, where they watched me (Cynthia) perform hidden tamarind, an abhinaya piece inspired by a fragment from an Annamaya padam, while sitting in the storefront window.  

I then invited the audience inside, where they took their seats to see Shyamala perform When We're Alone, a poignant and powerful solo incorporating inverted Bharata Natyam, rhythm, and voice to express the emotional crisis of a young South Asian woman struggling to untangle herself from cultural and familial webs.  

Shyamala and I then performed Adda with the Ancestors, an improvisational score created by Carol McDowell.  The score enacts an “adda” or conversation between two dancers with hybrid histories, the real and imagined ancestors of their dance memories, a guardian, and a curious friend.  The audience was encouraged to ask us questions during the performance, and it was wonderful to have some of the actual ancestors of our dance memories in the audience itself.

Then we gave the audience a short break to make more poems (Make Your Own Padam), which provided the material for the next performance piece.  The above poem was actually used in performance on the second day.  

(Sara Kumar and Gayle Fekete in Rasa Re-routed)

(Sara Kumar and Prumsodum Ok in Rasa Re-routed)

A remarkable group of guest artists hailing from theater, performance art, post/modern dance, and Cambodian dance backgrounds made the final piece, Rasa Re-routed, come alive.  The performers (four on each day) were Rebekah Davidson, Latrice Dixon, Gayle Fekete, Carmela Hermann, Carol McDowell, Prumsodun Ok, Sara Kumar, and Lailye Weidman.   Working together in duets of one reader and one mover, the same poem, selected from the poetry created by the audience that day, was interpreted nine times through the nine rasas (emotions) of Indian classical aesthetic theory: sringara (love), hasya (laughter), raudra (anger), karuna (compassion), bibhatsa (disgust), bhayanaka (fear), vira (courage), adbhuta (wonder), and shanta (peace).  It was a gift to see the tradition of abhinaya reinterpreted boldly, rigorously, and in such radically diverse ways according to the individual sensibilities and training of the performers.