Kuchipudi goes global

Younger daughter and disciple of legendary dancing couple Padma Bhushans Dr Raja Radha and Dr Kaushalya Reddy, Bhavana Reddy recently performed at the prestigious Walt Disney Concert Hall alongside the Los Angeles Philharmonic Orchestra in their production of Stravinsky's 'Rite of Spring' and her next performance is on December 14.

She got the big break because she was engaged by her friend Kitty Mcnamee who happens to be the artistic director and choreographer of this project.

"I wanted to experiment with inclusion of Kuchipudi dance as a component and introduce a global element to the production. So, I proposed the same to LA Phil and they were very interested in working with this element of Kuchipudi," shares Bhavana.

Kitty Mcnamee using the language of modern contemporary ballet and hip-hop choreographed the piece while Bhavana Reddy brings colour and vibrancy of Kuchipudi Indian Classical Dance choreography into the symphony.

"I play a wise woman of a tribe, who enlightens the villagers about the wonders of the earth and its five elements - earth (bhoomi), fire (apah), water (nalo) , wind (nilo) and sky (Nabha).

She teaches the village children to respect elders and honour nature. She embodies the elements and weaves a story through the language of Kuchipudi using mime, melodic gestures and complex rhythmic patterns.

Bhavana said, Kitty McNamee was choreographing modern contemporary dance for six LA based dancers who would be accompanying her. This show would be staged at the prestigious Walt Disney Concert Hall as part of their Toyota Symphonies for youth programme."

Speaking about the performance at Walt Disney Concert Hall and the overwhelming esponse, Bhavana said, "I had an opportunity to share our sacred Kuchipudi traditional dance for the connoisseurs of western classical art.

I had the opportunity to invite the conductor on to the stage at the start of the piece and request him that I would like to perform Lord Krishna's Ras Leela, and I was given the wonderful Walt Disney Concert Halls stage to perform.

As the concert proceeded, at half time, the orchestra, the conductor and the entire theatre paused, and there was pin drop silence during my solo performance that lasted for full two minutes. This for me, was a huge honour.

The applause that followed at this moment echoes in my ears even now. I am very excited to be a part of this and for my next performance again next week."

"The dance part has been more different for her than working with an orchestra. Since in Indian classical dance we are used to live music, however, here I followed the conductor's score and not the other way around.

The dance practice has been a great new experience for me. I came to understand how different their process of creation is from ours; they have a very abstract and free form approach to things with little to no rules or boundaries.

Also, their understanding of music is also free flowing, it seems to lie in the curves the peaks and falls, while we put everything to counting, dissect the music piece by piece put it on paper and proceed.

Also, one of the main things is traditionally we mould the music to suit the dance structure, here it was the other way around."