Re-looking at classical forms

Vikram Iyengar in "Across, not Over"

Here I am again to flag-up interesting contemporary performance work that strikes my eyes, ears and all that.

Good friend and colleague Vikram Iyengar, who I know from working with him in Aberystwyth on a site specific production, is in London at the end of May as part of the South Bank Centre’s Alchemy festival.

Iyengar's solo plays with the form of classical kathak dance deconstructed in a new solo dance performance. Chennai-based choreographer and dancer Preethi Athreya collaborated with soloist Vikram Iyengar to create Across, not Over. The simple, focused piece questions ideas of classicism and beauty, as the dancing body is presented as an image of itself.
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They set out to “re-look” at Kathak from a number of questions:

What is a Kathak trained body?
What does it enable, what traces does it leave on one's everyday (non-performative) physicality?
What mental space does it tend towards?
Where can the individual (the owner/inhabitant of this body) meet these traces, and what can one work towards meeting outside them?

Vikram Iyengar & Jane Lloyd Francis in "Seapiece" by D C Procter

Iyengar was also recently invited by German director and dance-maker, Helena Waldmann to be the co-choreographer for the piece “Made in Bangladesh,” where they embarked on a collaborative journey in mirroring striking realities between the sweatshops of the garment industry and that of the artistic practice

Friday 27 – Sunday 29 May
Friday, 7pm
Saturday, 2pm & 7pm
Sunday, 2pm
Weston Roof Pavillion at Royal Festival Hall, South Bank Centre, LONDON