They are dancers with Asian and Western background, leading by and Indian-Canadian choreographer; they dance with old and new styles, with old and new stories, using a traditional Indian technique of dance in contemporary, modern, funny, queer, gay, and kitsch subjects, and they most of the time are successful in it.
Last Saturday night enjoyed (because it was a pleasure) Box, a dance performance by InDance, directed by Hari Krishnan, at Fleck Dance Theatre. Seven surprising choreographies full of energy, good humour and beauty. You will see in the videos I've posted (from InDance's Yotube page) that mix and energy I'm talking about.
InDance is doing what many (many) dance companies around the world: taking their ancient techniques of movement and folk stories and transporting them to our times talking about our times. Many are successful and many simply are not. But the most interesting thing in InDance is that they are trying to talk about queer contemporary culture in a fresh and funny way with a very powerful theatrical weapon as ancient Indian dance technique is (and a little part of classical dance and ballet from Western culture), and you don't see anything like this in other part of the world... And they are doing it well.
In the end of Box you have not changed your way of seeing the world (even the world of the dance), not, but you leave the theatre with a big smile after have had a very new, powerful and different experience as a dance spectator, a surprising combination between the seriousness of an ancient performative culture and a new approach to our current bizarre way of living.
Different ways of saying things are the first big step of the big changes and I appreciate that InDance has shared it with us. We'll see how it goes through the time.
As usual, no videos or photographs allowed inside Harbourfront, so here a slideshow of photographs of the program and of some decoration at the theatre's hall, then three promotional videos from InDance's Youtube page.
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