This year, the Ignite Dance Festival aims to challenge the boundaries of contemporary dance and re-define its relationship with the audience

It’s finally here. After its successful debut edition in 2010, the critically acclaimed Ignite Dance Festival, organised by the Gati Dance Forum, is back in the national capital. It will bring together dancers, choreographers, artistes and audiences from all across the world for a five-day rendezvous with all things dance. With a strong focus on Indian contemporary dance and young dancers, this year’s festival promises to reach out to wider audiences, deepening their experience and understanding of contemporary dance.
From October 31 to November 4, Ignite will take contemporary dance to a variety of alternative public spaces, ranging from malls and heritage sites to gallery spaces.
By locating dance in the public realm, the festival aims to challenge its boundaries and re-define its relationship with the audience.
Anusha Lall, director of Gati Dance Forum, feels that the idea behind going out in the open to perform is to add quality to people’s life by showing the diversity of our art and culture. “The reason for choosing this format is to take contemporary dance to wider audiences while enabling a rigorous and fruitful exchange between the participating artists. The ordinary citizen today is only concerned about economics, politics, pollution, climate etc. No one bothers or tries to keep in touch with his/her culture. How can we expand our imagination, creativity and thought process if we don’t remember our culture? The festival is designed to bring back the imagination, the creativity, the knowledge — something extraordinary the people will love to watch.”
With supporters like Royal Norwegian embassy, Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities, British Council and Pro Helvetia-Swiss Arts Council, the line-up includes outdoor and site-specific performances, flash mobs and mobile screenings of dance films in public spaces. It also features events that take audiences beyond the performance itself, deepening their experience and understanding of contemporary dance.
While contemporary dance is trying to make its own place in India, Lall feels that there is a lot to be done about art and dance. “Our perception of art is only to tolerate it, we don’t support it. We have never let people think about dance and carry it forward. We need infrastructure, monetary support, only then will people become more inclined towards dance.”
Ignite will also give opportunities to emerging artistes like Deepak Kurki Shivaswamy, to showcase their work and facilitate their engagement with their art. “In recent years, young choreographers have succeeded in developing their own approaches to dance-making and have produced works that are fresh, innovative and adventurous. A major highlight of the festival is a series of exciting works by artistes such as Shivaswamy, Mehneer Sudan and Sanjukta Wagh,” says Mandeep Raiky, managing director, Gati Dance Forum.
On the opening day, October 31, Bengaluru-based Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts showcased MeiDhwani, choreographed by Jayachandran Palazhy. MeiDhwani captures the fragility of solitude and the chaos of turmoil of a human mind and body with dramatic movements. It portrayed individuals who are captives of circumstance and history, and traverses universal predicaments creating an individual sensorial narrative that oscillates between the suspended realms of the body and the soul.
“Following the last few years of economic turmoil and unplanned development in our life, people life’s and environment have changed. MeiDhwani reflects what the human mind and body has experienced in these turbulent times,” says Palazhy.
Palazhy feels that Indian contemporary dance is beginning to come of age as more and more exciting things are developing and huge possibilities are opening up. “Unlike with theatre and films, contemporary dance never had enough training facilities in India. However, this is changing as new training centres have come up of late. I find this is the beginning of the exciting time, which has a lot more to present.”
On Day 2, there will be Ravanama by Maya Krishna Rao. The dance form will showcase an actor in search of a character called Ravana.
On November 2, first there will be Indo-German contemporary dance by Navtej Johar and Ben J. Reipe at the Sri Ram Centre and then emerging contemporary dancer Deepak Kurki Shivaswamy will showcase the dance form called UnderContrAction. A contemporary depicting the intricate, confused and rapid urbanisation of the city, UnderContrAction is a movement installation that vividly captures the need to build, demolish and re-imagine the city. It explores how people, workers, individuals are caught in this mayhem and maze of bricks, bridges, construction sites and dust.
“This is a site-specific inspiration on how we physicalise the changes that are happening in our surroundings,” says Shivaswamy. He feels that the festival has seen a lot of changes since its first edition in 2010 and tells young dancers to see more and more contemporary dance to gain knowledge about it. “If you are young and you want to learn contemporary, please come and see how contemporary dance forms are performed. It will help you immensely,” says Shivaswamy.
On November 3, Padmini Chettur will present Beautiful Thing 2. In this dance form, Chettur uses time as a powerful strategy in the very dramaturgy of presence. The performance prescribes nine “lines” in space. The physicality of the body becomes abstracted over time, till the spaces it holds and moves become more present. “Beautiful Thing 2 is a simple and formal piece. It is the second part of the series Beautiful Thing which showcases visual beauty in firm,” says Chettur.
Describing that Ignite is doing very good work for new contemporary dancers which will help them immensely, Chettur says, “I am from an era where there were not many opportunities in terms of learning contemporary dance. However, today there are many opportunities to learn and see contemporary dance. We struggled more than today’s dancers.”
On November 4, Aakash Odedra from the United Kingdom will present The Rising at the Sri Ram Centre and Nrityagram & Chitrasena Dance Company (Ind/SL) will bring Samhara, a collaboration between Odissi and Kandyan that emerged from the premise thatnatyashashtra is the root of all dance traditions in the region and led to an exploration of the vocabulary of dance using the performance practices of India and Sri Lanka. Samhara is the culmination of a significant five-year journey that showed the elemental connections between Odissi and Kandyan dance.
So if you are an avid fan of contemporary dance, Ignite is one occasion you will not want to miss.