AAVARTANA
AUG 2018
NEWSLETTER FROM APSARAS ARTS SINGAPORE
Anushasanam - The Cosmic Flow of Yoga On 31st May 2018, Apsaras Arts conceptualised and presented a dance production "Anushasanam" in collaboration with Yoga practitioners from Singapore, as a special performance for the visit of the Indian Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi to Singapore. Photo taken with India’s Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi, Singapore’s Minister S Iswaran and Indian High Commissioner to Singapore Mr Jawed Ashraf
Upcoming Event : Dance India Asia Pacific 2018 Dance India Asia Pacific (DIAP) returns back to Singapore for the 7th time from 31st August to 8th September 2018, with new core programs and amazing line up workshops by legendary artistes.
NEELA : Next on DARSHANA Series After successful two performances of this brand new series by Apsaras Arts, DARSHANA - Intimate Dance Series presents its first Bharatanatyam performance NEELA - An Explorative Bharatanatyam Solo by Nikita Menon on 11th August 2018
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Featured Artiste : MOHANAPRIYAN THAVARAJAH Soumee De talks to Mohanapriyan Thavarajah, our resident choreographer and principal dancer of Apsaras Arts Dance Company, where he shares his Dance journey and inspirations.
From our Dairy : Jan-July 2018
Last year 2017 ended with a high-note, when we produced and presented the mega dance production “Anjaneyam - Hanuman’s Ramayana”, a co-production with Esplanade Theatres on the Bay for Kala Utsavam in November 2017 , followed by the tour of two dance productions to India for the Chennai Festival 2017 - “AGATHI - The Plight of the Refugee” and “Tanjore - The Golden Age of Bharatanatyam”, enabling us to achieve what our founder Mrs Neila Sathyalingam asked us to do so before the passed on earlier in the year in March 2017, by saying “the show must go on”. 2017, was the 40th year anniversary for Apsaras Arts since it was founded in 1977 in Singapore and presenting a new work “Anjaneyam”, was how our founder wanted to celebrate achieving this key mile-stone.
A Deep Reflection
The year 2018, in January started with significant performances - the presentation of “Kala Tantvi - The Strings that bind India and Asia”, a commissioned performance for Pravasi Bharathiya Divas 2018 in Singapore, by the Indian High Commission in Singapore. An excerpt of “Anjaneyam” was featured in the performance on 7th January 2018, along with performances of SIFAS, TFA, leading dance soloists of Singapore, along with guest artists the legendary Ramli Ibrahim and his Sutra Dance Company from Malaysia. This performance was followed by the tour of India for the ASEAN Ramanayan festival 2018 by ICCR, performing an excerpt from “Anjaneyam” in Delhi and Hyderabad.
February 2018, took us around several primary schools in Singapore where our company’s principal dancer danced and narrated story - "THE CROW AND THE FOX: IN WORDS AND DANCE | காக ந : ெசா க நடன ” to lower primary school students for the Singapore Writer’s Festival 2018. On 9th March 2018, we paid tribute to our founder Mrs Neila Sathyalingam on her first anniversary of passing on, by continuing to strive towards her vision for Apsaras Arts. February was an eventful month in which we collaborated with Mythii Prakash and Aditya Prakash from the USA in copresenting the Asian premier of their innovative dance production “MARA - The Master Mind” with Art Compass. Earlier in the month we conducted our first workshop of the year - “Technique and Expressions - Exploring the Beauty of Bharatanatyam” by Mohanapriyan Thavarajah, our dance faculty at Apsaras Arts Academy. March ended with a series of individual performances by our company dancers ‘Prema Margam” by Mohanapriyan Thavarajah, “Bharatanatya Maargam” by Sathvika Shankar and “Divta” by Meera Balasubramanian at the Kalavaibhavam 2018 presented by Singapore Indian Fine Arts Society. April 2018, brought new beginnings, we successfully launched a new dance series “DARSHANA” with the objective of providing a platform for solo performances of Indian classical dance genres to be experienced in an intimate setting. DARSHANA series being curated by Mohanapriyan Thavarajah, was inaugurated with the performance of “SAMVAD- An Interactive Experience with Kathak” by Avinav Mukherjee from Apsaras Arts. April concluded with the performance of “Narayanathe Namo Namo” presented by the Sri Srinivasa Perumal Temple, .
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The end of the first half of this year, in June 2018, took us on a international tour to UK performing "AGATHI - The Plight of the Refugee” in London, Manchester and Liverpool presented by Milapfest, UK. This tour also presented our company dancers at the “Big Hope” International convention by hope University, Liverpool, a workshop for the students of Milapfest, a solo performance by Mohanapriyan Thavarajah in London for the Jaffna Hindu College Alumni in the UK and a dance workshop by him in London.
TUMRI IN KATHAK
In May 2018, we presented the second performance of the DARSHANA series presenting an Odissi solo performance “Tribhanga - A Journey Through Odissi” by Soume De. Apsaras Arts presented Bharatantaym and Kathak performances for the International Dance Day celebrations presented by Shantha Rati Initiatives, Singapore. In May we welcomed Neha Mondal Chakravarty and Thangammal Subramanian as our company dancers nd dance faculty members of Apsaras Arts. This month we had an international tour with Vijaya Nadesan, our principal, Mohanapriyan Thavarajah our principal dancer and choreographer and Aravinth Kumarasamy our Artistic Director invited to attend the 32nd annual Trinity Festival and Nandikeshwara festival at Melbourne, Australia. At this festival Mohanapriyan Thavarajah performed his solo thematic production “Aadum Arul Jothi - The Dances of Divinity” and performed the Navagragha Kriti on Budha by Muthuswami Dikshitar at the festival. Aravinth Kumarasamy presented a paper on “Muthuswami Dikshitar’s Compositions as inspiration for Dance” at the conference in Melbourne. May ended with a high note - Apsaras Arts conceptualised and presented “Anushasanam - The cosmic flow of Yoga” consisted of selected slokas from Sage Patanjali’s Yoga Sutra set to music by Dr Rajkumar Bharathi, choreographed by Mohanapriyan Thavarajah, performed by our company dancers to large audience of 6000 persons.
AVINAV MUKHERJEE IN SAMVAD @ DARSHANA
SOUME DE IN TRIBANGA @ DARSHANA
Back in Singapore we hosted Gauri Diwakar in a Kathak workshop at Apsaras Arts and our Kathak faculty member Avinav Mukherjee performed in a collaborative performance with Singapore based Kathak teachers for the Bhaskarayeem 2018 festival presented by Bhaskar’s Arts. In June Apsaras Arts became an institutional partner with IndianRaga and an excerpt from AGATHI was featured in its worldwide followed platform. In July 2018, we presented AGATHI in Singapore as a second season after its initial world premier in Singapore in 2017. The representation of AGATHI at the Siglap South Cc Perrforming Arts Centre was well received with 2 house full performances.
MADHURASHTAKAM
R E C E N T
S H O W
P H O T O S
PHOTO ALBUM AGATHI (Manchester)
Internattional Dance Day 2018
Big Hope Convention (Liverpool)
Bhaskareeyam 2018
AGATHI (London)
Trinity Festival (Melbourne)
Workshop by Gauri Diwakar
Moghul Style Kathak
FEATURED ARTISTE
Soumee De in conversation with Mohanapriyan Thavarajah
LOVER OF BEAUTY by Soumee De Childhood Days Born to a traditional well known goldsmith family at Batticaloa, Sri Lanka, Priyan says, “Art & Creativity is in my genes. But I do regret for not learning the art of gold craft!” saying the eldest to the five siblings, Priyan was fortunate to be exposed to multiple arts trining from music, dance, language to balvikas. From service at the temples, to building their own family temple, Priyan brims with fond memories from his childhood. At the tender age of ten, he realised that “I have rhythm in my body.” Priyan vividly remembers a certain biology lecture, when his teacher asked him why he looked so lost? He stood up with crystal clarity and said, “This is not my class. I can't connect to this. I want to dance.” This precision and clarity in his thought process helped him overcome the resistance from his father in pursuit of arts. Priyan thanks his Principal and teachers who spotted the talent at the young age and encouraged him to go to India to learn arts much to the disappointment of his father.
As Priyan decoded the meaning of his beautiful name, “Mohana" means beauty and “Priyan” means “ the lover of ” …the beauty of his soul unravelled before me
At his father’s insistence, several counseling sessions later, Priyan was finally allowed to head off to Trichy and his parents admitted him at the Kalai Kaviri College of Fine Arts under the condition that he will learn music but not dance. Ultimately Priyan chose to be a dance student. Priyan describes with vivid memory how awestruck he felt as he stood at the gate of the impressive college building and stared at the towering huge male dance figurines for a change. Hearing thattukazhi and foot work of the dancers, on other side karnatic music, Priyan envisioning the start of his dancing journey by the reception of an absolute aesthetic atmosphere.
Journey as a Dancer Priyan’s seven years of full-time dance degree courses including bachelor’s and master’s started from scratch. Faraway from the comfort of home and love of his family and the strict living conditions Priyan was determined to spend every moment soaking in knowledge. “I lived life like there is no tomorrow,” remembers Priyan starting his day at 4 am in the morning to learn Kuchipudi from the eminent Guru Shri Krishna, insisting on being the first male student to learn Mohiniattam during lunch hour! Priyan’s multi disciplinary knowledge in music, forms of dance, Sanskrit, Tamil, Literature, religious studies helped him broaden and deepen his holistic arts education.
When he was studying Master’s he funded his studies by teaching including the needful children. Priyan remembers taking a train to the remote village and teaching the under privileged children who hardly had money to afford shoes for their tiny feet, Priyan feels humbled and privileged to have brought arts to the lives of those needed them the most. Priyan’s performance experience started early where weekends were invested by the Kalai Kaveri Arts College troupe in performing around Tamil Nadu and other states of India. He was the only foreigner student who was selected in international tours. Priyan’s choreographic journey also started at the college where he would present his new works at several events in the college and learn from the loving critical feedback and appreciation given by his teacher, Guru Ogeswari Shanmuganathan. During his college time Priyan has earned a recognition for his distinct dance style, innovative choreography and passionate teaching. “Golden student priyan” (states in the Vikadan Magazine from India) has archived gold medals in the degrees programmes for his out standing ranks in the whole university level. As Priyan attributed his gratitude to teachers for the immense learning during these years, he also credited learning from some of his most committed students. Shaped by these values of deep learning principles and high standards, Priyan continues to impart these values today and has similar expectations from his current students at Apsaras Arts Dance Academy.
Journey as a Professional Priyan’s work life started in a curious way. Post his masters, on his convocation day, Priyan returned on the plane back home, puzzled and crying not knowing what life has next for him. Back in Sri Lanka, a rural teaching assignment came his way at the remote village of Batticaloa similarly like in India. Within four months of this assignment, he taught A/L students who were learning bharatanatyam and later he encounter them in the Jaffna University as a Degree students during his performance tour in Jaffna University. Priyan received surprise call from Aravinth Kumarasamy, Artistic Director of Apsaras Arts from Apsaras Arts for a work project at Singapore. Priyan was invited to Singapore for a month long assignment as a choreographer for the children’s production, Sita’s Magical Forest that debuted at Esplanade festival Kala Utsavam in 2012. Life has not turned back for him since that day. Since then Priyan spent six years at Apsaras arts as a Principal Dancer and Resident Choreographer and performed across the world in both solo and group productions like Heroins of Rajah Ravi Varma (2012), Glimpses of Angkor(2013), Angkor - An Untold Story (2013), Anjasa Unravel the wonders of Buddhist monuments in Asia(2014), Alapadma - The Lotus Unfolds(2015), Aadum Arul Jothi - Dances of Divinity (2016), Agathi - The Plight of refugees (2017), Anjaneyam- Hanuman’s Ramayana(2017) among many others.
A Deep Reflection
As we move to the present, Priyan remembers fondly how he was identified as one of the young male Bharatnatyam dancers at Milapfest UK in 2016 and was featured in Sarvam Foundation’s calendar along with other celebrated young and the top most senior artistes. When he traveled back to the Kalai Kaveri College two years later, he was touched to see how the calendar continues to be on the college wall facing Priyan’s image as a pride of their alma mater. As I ask Priyan to reminisce one of his most memorable moments, he delightfully relived his experience presenting “Ananda Thandavam” as a soloist at the 1000 pillars hall Chidambaram Temple on the auspicious Guru pusam day where the legends says lord Natarajah itself danced on the same day and hall. With Aravinth on the nattuvangam, he remembered the moment where 5 deities on a procession including the Lord Nataraja stopped their parikrama around the mandapa, right in front of his stage to watch him complete his dance! while on the left side Gopuram was lighted with lamps. The spiritual moment made the performers cry with tears of joy! priyan feels blessed how spirituality and and the true spirt of dance reaching god co existing in his journey.
Returning to the present day, I was curious to know about his thoughts about Singapore. “One can inspire other” so the growth in the art industry in Singapore is simply amazing. Priyan feels that he is fortunate to make Singapore his home because Singapore and the home grown company Apsaras Arts have contributed so much to his artistic growth which made him to have gained quite a lot of learning experiences and also enabled him to follow his passion through a very organized system. Singapore is a cultural pool which has the largest platform for all the artistes and art pursuits. Dance students and artists are extremely lucky in Singapore as they have the most pinieeor arts school schools to learn from; access to world class performances in a small county like Singapore; full time career opportunities in dance and great infrastructures. The support from the government and schools through grants, training and exposure. The unparalleled beauty of Singapore also lies in its multi cultural richness and diversity. Priyan pays his humble gratitude to his lovingly mother who was behind him for all the stands of life, his father who supported his arts college education, Neila Mami, an absolute visionary who founded Apsaras Arts together with her Husband S Sathyalingam and propagated the dance form in a multiracial society; broke barriers and took risk to make learning relevant and attractive for the future generation and to Aravinth Kumarasamy who is a fine example for the exceptional talent and subtle human being who is mentoring Priyan in his artistic journey.
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The Journey forward What is Priyan’s message for the next generation of dancers and choreographers? Firstly the deeper analysis and consistent learning of an art form will give the sustainable strength and sources for the artists to grow. Like how the learning experiences makes us a good dancer, teacher or choreographer perhaps we should raise a bar to become a sensible artiste other than just putting our self into frame in what we know or what we practice. I often remember the dance doyen Padma Subramaniam had said many time in her speeches to the dancers. “Every one doesn’t need to be a choreographer or teacher pick what is graciously pouring out of you and enable you to perform better and pass on to the next generations at your best level”. I find this is very important statement to seriously think about it we may find our own identity. another time she said “As a dancers we must hear the dance and see the music” - said Dr Padma Subramaniam i am i sensible enough to understand the ethics out of this quote ? how important the parallel knowledge on music and dance to become a sensible artiste more than just a dancer or choreographer. It is necessary to open our minds for new learning and thoughts also genuinely appreciate other artiste that marks our journey for the new openings in the field of art. Dancers should attend music concerts similarly musicians should attend dance concert since we share the same platform but ultimately the mutual understanding is matter for art form and artistes. “More than the interest and passion, commitment also matters a lot. Dance is more than attending classes or performing on stage. How much of time that we give for our thought process ? It is also about what you learn associated to dance to make it lively and enhance your art form; its about researching and gathering more than you need. Only then you will be able to connect to the audience and converse through hearts and then you will gain the artistic license to be the expert. Dance is a poornakala which is combined together with many other art forms such as music art, sculpture, literature ect. Lets learn the holistic discipline to truly live with it”
Soumee De has trained in two Indian Classical dance forms- Kathak and Odissi at India and Singapore and is currently learning Odissi from Guru Ratikant Mohapatra, Srjan. Soumee is a co-founder of “Ethos Exploring The Odissi Spirit,” a community of Odissi dancers in Singapore with a vision to propagate the dance form across boundaries and geographies. She describes herself as a passionate Dancer, professional Banker and a proud Mother.
Welcoming our new family members
Neha Mondal Chakravarty, is a Bharatanatyam Danseuse who hails from India. A post- graduate from the renowned institution, Kalakshetra Foundation, Chennai, she has been trained under some of the doyens of Bharatanatyam like Sheejith Krishna, Professor A Janardhanan and Leela Samson. Neha has performed in major productions and travelled extensively as a member of the Kalakshetra Repertory company. She is a recipient of Scholarship to Young Artists from The Ministry Of culture and Junior Scholarship from National Center for Cultural Resources and Training, New Delhi. A trained Jazz dancer from The Danceworx by Ashley Lobo, Neha is an A grade artist with The Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. She has regularly performs at major international festivals and has represented India for Incredible India. Neha is a company dancer and faculty member with Apsaras Arts Dance Company, Singapore.
A Deep Reflection
Thangammal Subramanian, is a professionally qualified Bharatanatyam artiste and has completed her Masters in Fine Arts, in Bharathanatyam from Sastra University, Tanjore., India. She is also a commerce graduate. She has been under the tutelage of Smt. Meera Srikanth during her residence in Dubai, and continued her training in Bharatanatyam (Kalakshetra Bani) under the tutelage of Smt. Shobanaa Bhalchandra, the youngest of the Trio Sisters and senior most disciple of the Padmabushan Dhananjayans and Padmabushan Kalanidhi Narayanan. She is a graded artiste for dance by the Doordarshan, India. She has been regularly performing in major dance productions, at various festivals and Sabhas across India and Dubai. She devotes all her time to her passion – Bharathanatyam, and is a avid follower of classical arts. Thangammal is a company dancer and faculty member with Apsaras Arts Dance Company, Singapore.
A Deep Reflection
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