Snowangels & The Lion’s Roar
By Deepti Gupta
Arzoo Dance Theatre (Ottawa)
April 6 & 7, 2018 @ 8PM
Market Hall Performing Arts Centre, 140 Charlotte St. N
Tickets:
$23/$15 students, underwaged/$8 high school students
ARTIST’S TALK ON THURSDAY, APRIL 5: DECODING CLASSICAL INDIAN DANCE
Deepti Gupta will talk about her practice and career as an artist, teacher and scholar and help us decode classical Indian dance.
April 5, 7PM. At Bagnani Hall, Traill College, 300 London Street. Free. Co-sponsored by Traill College.
POST SHOW Q&A: BOTH NIGHTS
POST SHOW Q&A: BOTH NIGHTS
Q&A with the artists. At the Market Hall immediately following the show both nights. There will be a reception on Friday night.
INTRODUCTION TO KATHAK DANCE with DEEPTI GUPTA
Saturday, April 7, 1:30PM – 3PM at The Market Hall. Learn Kathak dance from a master teacher, Deepti Gupta. $12. Please register in advance by email: admin@publicenergy.ca.
LISTEN NOW to Public Energy's Curator's Corner Podcast featuring Deepti Gupta
Public Energy is pleased to welcome Deepti Gupta back to Peterborough for the premiere of her newest work, Snowangels; the longstanding relationship between Gupta and Public Energy has included a number of new works, most notably her iconoclastic work, Rubies, in 2003.
Snowangels explores the newcomer encounter with snow, and the ongoing experience every Canadian has with this mysterious, startling phenomenon of nature. Featuring four dancers, the choreography explores rhythm, expression and narrative, based in the Kathak dance form. Snowangels combines elements of Canadian music with the rhythms of Indian classical music.
Also on the program is Gupta’s solo dance The Lion’s Roar. The Lion’s Roar depicts the inner journey of Queen Srimala as she confronts demons and ultimately reaches her true being as a great Buddhist teacher. The work is based on The Sutra of the Lion’s Roar a Buddhist text written by Queen Srimala
(L-R) Aasttha Khajuria, Deepti Gupta, Parul Gupta, Reshmi Chetram-Dave
About Snowangels
Snowangels is a new performance for four dancers that explores the newcomer encounter with snow, and the experience every Canadian has with this mysterious, startling phenomenon of nature, using the storytelling tradition of Kathak. With an original score by Nick Storring, drawing on contemporary music and the rhythms of Indian classical music.
As an immigrant from India, Deepti has always been fascinated by the magical transformations of the snow from snow angel to snow drift to snowflake and been inspired by the visual grandeur and sensuality of the snowscapes depicted in classic Canadian landscape painting. In the storytelling tradition of Kathak, the dance also pays homage to the myths and spirits of Canada. The haunting original score created by Toronto composer Nick Storring combines elements of Canadian contemporary and classical music with the rhythms of Indian classical music. The music features a traditional Indian Tarana sung by renowned classical Indian vocalist, Ms. Meeta Pandit. Like an aria, it is a soaring vocal solo that paints emotional landscapes.
Choreography: Deepti Gupta
Dancers: Parul Gupta, Aasttha Khajuria, Barkha Patel, Noah Damer
Score / Sound Design: Nick Storring
Lighting Design: Simon Rossiter
About The Lion’s Roar
The Lion’s Roar is based upon The Sutra of the Lion’s Roar of Queen Srimala, a Buddhist text written by Queen Srimala of the Kosala dynasty in the third century BC in central India. She became a great teacher of Buddhism and is known for her powerful and truthful method of speaking, which is known as ‘the lion’s roar’. The piece loosely depicts the journey of Queen Srimala as she confronts forces within and without her and ultimately reaches her true being as a spiritual teacher. Although classical Kathak continues to form the basis for this choreography, the movements are removed from their traditional context and reinterpreted. The movement vocabulary is extended to include images from Buddhism and also informed by a contemporary sensibility.
Nick Storring’s layered contemporary score poses challenges to the choreographer as it contains none of the rhythm structures and syllables which are intrinsic to Kathak. The music and choreography for The Lion’s Roar have evolved over a long process of referencing the historical text, working with a variety of eastern and western sounds and patterns which are echoed in the score and the images of the dance.
Choreography & Performance: Deepti Gupta
Score / Sound Design: Nick Storring
About Deepti Gupta
Deepti Gupta is a noted scholar, teacher and choreographer both in Canada and in India. Brought up in Ottawa, Deepti is a dancer and choreographer of the elegant Kathak style of Indian dance. A disciple of Sri Munna Lal Shukla, renowned guru of the Lucknow Gharana, she has recently been training and working under the guidance of Kathak legend Pundit Birju Maharaj.
Deepti’s choreographic work is at the cutting edge of contemporary South Asian dance and she has collaborated with a diverse range of international musicians, designers, digital and new media artists. Her work has been presented by the National Arts Centre, National Gallery of Canada, the Canada Dance Festival, Kalanidhi Fine Arts, Raga Mala of Canada, Danceworks, Peterborough New Dance, Banff Centre for the Arts, Tangente, Harbourfront Centre as well as many community presenters across Canada. Her work has also been presented by Danspace Project, DTW, New York; Anila Sinha Foundation, International House and Kalapriya, Chicago; Vasantotsav, Delhi; and the Panchatatva Festival Mumbai among others.
Her choreographies have been critically acclaimed in the New York Times, the Village Voice and Dance Connection Magazine. Deepti has performed extensively in Canada, India, the US and the UK both as a soloist as well as with her company.
A relentless experimentalist with a variety of theatrical interests, she was given the Dora Award for Costume Design. She has also worked extensively in Indian theatre as an actor, dramaturge and script writer.
