Artisphere (Rosslyn Metro)
1101 Wilson Boulevard
Arlington, VA 22209
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Artisphere presents award-winning fusion Indian dance works by the acclaimed Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company (Dakshina) followed by Bhangra dance parties with the U.S. Department of Bhangra’s DJ Beta-G on December 9 and 10 at 8pm with a special Sunday matinee at 3pm for families. Tickets to the 8pm dance performance followed by the Bhangra dance party are $25, or come at 9pm Friday and Saturday exclusively for Bhangra dancing for $15. Tickets to the Sunday 3pm matinee for families (which includes both the dance performance and Bhangra dance party) are $12 for adults and $8 for children. There will be a free open dress rehearsal of the Dakshina dance performance on Thursday, December 8 at 7:30pm.

The Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company offers artists and communities the unique opportunity to experience dance as a movement that links the arts, cultures and social causes. Examining the connections between Indian, social, and modern dance forms, Dakshina has repeatedly brought dance out of the auditorium, pushing the boundaries of form through the use of film, interviews, popular music and theater. The Company is committed to making dance a central part of the performing arts and often facilitates international cultural dialogues with visiting dancers and choreographers from around the world. Dakshina’s fusion works were recently showcased in India and Bangladesh to critical acclaim in both countries. These unique and cultural dance works use a syncretic blend of Bharata Natyam and modern dance forms to explore contemporary versions of Indian myths. This tour of Dakshina is made possible by a grant from Mid Atlantic Arts Foundation with support from the National Endowment for the Arts.

For the Artisphere engagement, the Company warms up with Singh’s signature fusion work “Vasanth”, which depicts the Indian myth of how spring comes to earth–the work premiered to critical acclaim at Kennedy Center’s Maximum India Festival. “Since You’ve Asked” is a tender duet for two men drawing on Singh’s gestural, lyrical work. Other highlights include Eric Hampton’s “By the Light…”, a gem of a dance depicting Hampton’s struggle with Lou Gehrig’s disease. Interestingly, Hampton chose the Moonlight Sonata for the score, which historians now agree was written during Beethoven’s middle period when he had already begun losing his hearing. Whether by choice or by luck, the poignancy of a choreographer losing his ability to move and a musician losing his ability to hear are brought together in this gem of a dance. The evening will close with Ludovic Jolivet’s whimsical and poignant work “Voy Y Vengo.” Jolivet is an Arlington based artist who creates works that connect modern dance and mime. In “Voy Y Vengo”, the dancers use office chairs as their props to explore the cycles of life.

Join in the dancing after each performance with the U.S. Department of Bhangra’s DJ Beta-G as he spins the greatest in Bhangra dance music. DJ Beta-G throws parties in and around DC for those wanting to dance the night away to the pungent rhythms of Punjabi dance music, a type of Bhangra music.

Tickets to attend the dance performance and Bhangra dance party on Friday and Saturday at 8pm are $25 and $12 adults + $8 kids for the Sunday 3pm matinee. Tickets to attend just the Bhangra dance party on Friday and Saturday at 9pm are $15. The open dress rehearsal for the Dakshina dance performance on Thursday, December 8 at 7:30pm is free.

For more information visit www.artisphere.com.

Sunday, October 2
3:30 p.m.
Westminster Presbyterian Church
400 I Street, SW, Washington DC

This event is FREE – RSVP to rsvp@dakshina.org.

Gowri Koneswaran is a poet, singer, and lawyer whose parents immigrated to the U.S. from Sri Lanka. She was a Lannan Fellow of the Folger Shakespeare Library and has been a featured poet at the Kennedy Center’s Millennium Stage and the Smithsonian Folklife Festival. Her poetry has appeared in Bourgeon and is forthcoming in Beltway Poetry Quarterly. She was a member of the 2010 DC Southern Fried Slam team and serves as the program director at BloomBars, a community arts space in Columbia Heights, where she hosts Poetry in the Morning and co-hosts The Garden open mic. Gowri is also the founder of The AlternaGirls. Information on her upcoming performances can be found at her blog, Not Here Long.

Learn about other Fall Festival of Indian Arts events.

Join us for our 8th Annual Fall Festival of Indian Arts and our 7th year of partnership with Alif. We are excited to have her back with us this Fall. Gracious and talented, she serves as a role model and mentor to Daniel.

Alif Laila was born and raised in Dhaka, Bangladesh. Her connection with the arts has been very deep since early childhood. In Dhaka, Bangladesh, she began her initial training in vocal music, and was eventually inspired to learn the Sitar by her mother, Shehida. She was trained on a ‘one to one’ basis in the techniques and compositions of classical music by Ustad Mir Qasem Khan, nephew of Ustad Allauddin Khan, and founder of the Senia Maihar school of music. Alif’s passion for the arts was beyond music alone. She attended the College of Fine Arts in Dhaka where she graduated with a Bachelor’s degree and received several awards for her water color paintings. The world of rhythm and tone in drawing and painting gradually merged with her music and her love story with the arts began. She was fortunate to receive guidance from teachers like Partha Chatterjee and Krishna Bhatt and blessings from Ustad Ali Akbar Khan. She has performed extensively in many prestigious venues in Bangladesh, India, Europe and the USA. World renowned Tabla artists like Pandit Anindo Chatterjee, Ustad Taari Khan, and Pandit Yogesh Shamsi have performed and recorded with her. In 2007 her DVD ‘Hrydayaragam’ was presented at The Smithsonian. She has recently released another DVD, ‘Strings of Resonance’ with Anubrata Chatterjee, presenting Indian Classical music as the link to the heritage of the land from the past to the present.

With devotion and dedication Alif embraces the Sitar as the instrument of her soul.

To know more about her and watch her video-clips please visit her website: www.aliflailasitar.com and blog: aliflailasitar.blogspot.com.

Participants will learn one item and then Ms Samson will explore the dynamics of group choreography by adapting the dance item taught into group choreography. For advanced Bharata Natyam dancers–post Arengetram level highly recommended.

Dates of workshop will be between Monday October 3rd through Wednesday October 5th. Final times will be published by the end of August. Participants will learn a historic dance “Nee Uraippai Hanumane” originally choreographed by Rukmini Devi Arundale. Leela akka learnt this dance directly from Rukmini devi and this will be a rare opportunity to learn one of the Kalakshetra items first hand from Leela akka. We encourage workshop participants to stay for Leela akka’s Solo performance on October 7th and the Kalakshetra group performance on October 8th.

Venue: Workshop will take place from 9 am to 12 pm in the mornings on October 3, 4 and 5th, in Silver Spring, at the Maryland Youth Ballet–easily accessible on the subway or metro buses.

Cost of workshop is $450. Only online payments will be accepted.

Leela Samson is among India’s most dynamic and technically brilliant dancers, an outstanding representative of Kalakshetra, the famed institute for the classical arts founded by the late Rukmini Devi Arundale on the Chennai ocean front. She joined Kalakshetra as a young child and her formative years were spent in imbibing the nuances of Bharata Natyam and related arts at the feet of celebrated gurus.

Her personal style is unostentatious, serene and characterized by an impeccable technique that blends geometrical precision with vibrancy and an unfettered ease. Her rhythmic acumen is apparent in dance compositions containing varied and challenging percussion patterns. Among the many honours conferred on her, Leela Samson was awarded the prestigious Padmashri by the President of India in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the art of Bharata Natyam as well as the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award instituted by the apex cultural body of the Government of India. Currently, she is the Director of Kalakshetra, Chennai, the oldest dance/theater institution in India.

With support from the ICCR, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and in cooperation with the Indian Embassy.
Friday October 7 at 7:30 pm
Lincoln Theatre
1215 U Street NW

PLENTY OF TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE THEATRE. Box office will open at 6:00 pm.

Join us for our 8th Annual Fall Festival of Indian Arts. Leela Samson opens the festival on Friday October 7 at 7:30 pm with a Bharata Natyam performance. Samson is among India’s most dynamic and technically brilliant dancers, an outstanding representative of Kalakshetra, the famed institute for the classical arts founded by the late Rukmini Devi Arundale on the Chennai ocean front. She joined Kalakshetra as a young child and her formative years were spent in imbibing the nuances of Bharata Natyam and related arts at the feet of celebrated gurus.

Her personal style is unostentatious, serene and characterized by an impeccable technique that blends geometrical precision with vibrancy and an unfettered ease. Her rhythmic acumen is apparent in dance compositions containing varied and challenging percussion patterns. Among the many honors conferred on her, Leela Samson was awarded the prestigious Padmashri by the President of India in recognition of her outstanding contribution to the art of Bharata Natyam as well as the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award instituted by the apex cultural body of the Government of India. Currently, she is the Director of Kalakshetra, Chennai, the oldest dance/theater institution in India.

PLENTY OF TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE THEATRE. Box office will open at 6:00 pm.

With support from the ICCR, Mid-Atlantic Arts Foundation, DC Commission on the Arts and Humanities and in cooperation with the Indian Embassy.
Saturday October 8 at 7:30 pm
Lincoln Theatre
1215 U Street NW

PLENTY OF TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE THEATRE. Box office will open at 6:00 pm.

Join us for our 8th Annual Fall Festival of Indian Arts. Leela Samson closes the festival on Saturday October 8 at 7:30 pm with Spanda, her critically reviewed Bharata Natyam performance. Samson is among India’s most dynamic and technically brilliant dancers, an outstanding representative of Kalakshetra, the famed institute for the classical arts founded by the late Rukmini Devi Arundale on the Chennai ocean front. She joined Kalakshetra as a young child and her formative years were spent in imbibing the nuances of Bharata Natyam and related arts at the feet of celebrated gurus.

Watch a video clip of SPANDA.

SPANDA

‘Spanda’, (a vibration) is symbolic of the enduring and perpetual energy that is the life force of the universe. It incorporates the philosophical concept of Prithvi as the center and source of energy in the universe and equates it with the nabham, the womb as the origin of energy in the human body.

The rediscovery of the basic movements of Bharata Natyam and the need for a reinterpretation of its traditional vocabulary challenges Spanda. Spanda seeks to establish a more relevant dialogue between dance, music and stagecraft.

PLENTY OF TICKETS AVAILABLE AT THE THEATRE. Box office will open at 6:00 pm.

‘Spanda-Matrika’ reduces movement to its essence. It is a journey inwards seeking the essential ‘center’, the origin of movement and its source of strength through the adavus (dance steps) of the Bharata Natyam style. On one level, it attempts to internalize the consciousness of the dancer towards the particular movement rather than on the composition of the whole. On the other, no dancer is whole in the composition
without every other. Much like life, the dancer is made conscious of the energy she brings to the group and how that enhances the whole. Spanda Matrika is based on the various rhythm cycles in Carnatic music.

Aakash

‘Who would breathe, who would live,
If there were not this bliss in space’

Aakash attempts an exploration of the concept of space. Using slokas (verses) from the Vedas, the dancer discovers it, explores it, celebrates it – through movement. Aakash is the universe. Its garbha is Prithvi, the earth. All life emanates from this center, explores outwards, interacting constantly with space – which surrounds it, nurtures it, gives it form and being. The life-force of the dancer is the nabha – from
this center, all movement emanates.

Charishnu is indicative of the intent or desire to move. It is an expression of the joy of ‘journeying’. Every individual, animal, or nation – journeys in a manner typical of his own nature. We move in different ways, in different directions, at a differing pace. What is exciting is the dynamics of this movement happening differently, at the same time. It is the physics of the constellations. It is the happening of creation. Making use of the the different rhythm cycles in Carnatic music, the abstract movement in Charishnu simply enjoys what it is doing.

The choreography for ‘Spanda’ is by Ms. Leela Samson.