Review of Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies in NYC
Excerpts from a Review by Anita Ratnam/Narthaki Online
Rogue Gestures/Foreign Bodies was presented by Kala Collective, NYC with the support for NEFA National Dance Project
”The loneliness of being in a strange land, of a mother who worked and a father who stayed home to care for the family is not the general diaspora experience. Nadhi, as principal dancer and choreographer, attempted to make her mother's story a universal one. She recalls her mother working several jobs in multiple careers while becoming a community organiser AND trying to put down roots in a foreign soil. As personal diary is a popular motif for many diaspora dancers (I watched Akash Odedra climb out of a suitcase in his solo in London), I find myself wondering if the Bharatanatyam vocabulary is sufficient to tell one's personal story. The form seems more readily suited to channel the grander epic/legend/myth. Everyday life and experiences seem to demand a dismantling of very formal structures and yet Nadhi and her dancers managed to override my initial skepticism with their continuous montage of many scenes and high energy dancing.
“A truncated Tillana where the dancer "loses balance" (one of the more effective physical translations of grief) after a phone call from India conveys news of a beloved's passing, brought tears to many in the audience. I too received that dreaded phone call from India in 1998 about my father - a time before mobile technology. Do the familiar scenes of oiling and braiding hair (an intimate mother-daughter moment) invoke the same level of nostalgia today as it did 40 years ago when distances and time seemed greater and communication slower?
”The well-knit ensemble of dancers worked beautifully on several occasions and the light hearted invocation of the word game CONCENTRATION was clever, although it could have appeared earlier in the work. All the dancers seemed invested in the performance and the technical and aesthetic appeal of the ensemble sections was high. The multi genre music score was a stand alone "distraction". I use the word deliberately since the many notes of instruments and genres were marvellously seductive and pulled attention away from the core of the narrative on many occasions. Directed by Roopa Mahadevan and Kalaisan Kalaichelvan, the superb sound design often overpowered the dancing rather than complementing the choreography.
”ROGUE GESTURES has been in the making with earlier iterations since 2022. It is a bold and brave work, worthy of watching more than once. It shows a coming of age and confidence with some North American dance makers who are willing to interrogate and investigate what it means to be brown and a POC in a multi racial society. I applaud Nadhi for braiding the many strands of personal history, poetry, movement, dance and diaspora voices and for asking the larger question about labour, community organisation and about reclaiming one's identity all over again.”