Sandhya Manoj (right), and Krithika Ramachandran (left)
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement
Every figment of creative work is born from a spark of inspiration. For Odissi dancer Sandhya Manoj, it came from a mother. Once, after a dance recital in Malaysia, where Sandhya was based at the time, a woman from the audience walked up to her and asked if she could create a piece on her story.
Intrigued, Sandhya listened. The woman, a classical dance aficianado, had been following Sandhya’s work keenly. Mother to an autistic girl, she wanted Sandhya to portray her life story through dance. “It was a rare request, but I was drawn to her story. I started talking to her and I decided to attempt something that would capture this ‘ordinary’ woman’s extraordinary life,” says Sandhya.
Her production, Prerna : The Inspiration, is based on the mother-daughter duo and will be staged in Kochi on April 2, World Autism Day.
A new range of emotions
When Sandhya started working on the project, she knew full well that it would be a challenge to adapt such a subject into the vocabulary of dance. “Creating a narrative in classical dance was a challenge, as I didn’t have any reference points. I knew we had to come up with a completely new range of emotions,” says Sandhya. She set to work on the choreography, while constantly communicating with the mother and daughter whose story she was portraying. She took on board a Bharatanatyam artiste Krithika Ramachandran to play the daughter’s part while she played the mother.
“After one and a half years of co-ordination and practice, Prerana: The Inspiration was complete. It has been one of the most interesting concepts I had ever worked on. I knew that by telling this story, we were not just talking about one mother-daughter duo, but it would resonate with many others as well. Since we are portraying the larger idea of inclusion, I wanted to have a blend of genres, languages and even the dance aesthetic,” says Sandhya.
The lyrics for the music are a mix of Malayalam, English, Hindi, Tamil and Sanskrit. The one-hour-15-minute performance would be accompanied by live music.
A jugalbandi
“The reason why I wanted to make it a jugalbandi was to convey the gap between the mother and the autistic child and yet, how they connect. In the larger perspective, the onus is on us to try and understand the world of autistic people and learn to adapt ourselves,” she says.
The piece also conveys the idea of motherhood and how one need not always match up to the norms set down by society. “Each mother is trying to do her best in her own way and there is no one way to becoming a ‘good mother’,” says Sandhya.
Sandhya Manoj
| Photo Credit:
Special Arrangement
Sandhya, who has been dancing since the age of four, has learnt most other classical dance forms too, but Odissi appealed to her. “I felt I could connect with the dance form better and express myself effortlessly through Odissi,” she says. Among her noted productions are Radhe Radhe, a solo piece that was centred around the story of an abused girl; Kaikeyi, based on the character from The Ramayana, generally perceived as evil, from her perspective.
The recital would be held on April 2, 6.30pm, at Fine Arts Hall, Kochi. Entry is free.
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