words yvonne teh

A contemporary dance company takes to the air, follows the path of the warrior and unites with the divine as it ranges over earth and sky.

When is a dance troupe an extended family? When it is the Daksha Sheth Dance Company (DSDC) according to Devissaro, the internationally acclaimed company’s artistic co-director, music composer, set and lighting designer. And after he points out that DSDC only has eight core members, which include his wife of 24 years, Daksha Sheth, as well as two of their children – their current production’s principal dancer Isha Sharvani and percussionist Tao Issaro – it is easy enough to see his point!

The company may be compact but their ambitions are not. Daksha Sheth – the company’s co-director, choreographer and one of the dancers – says anyone attending a performance of their latest production BhuKham: Circus of Earth & Sky “can go on a journey of earth and sky with us”. And Devissaro adds that in presenting this cutting-edge show in which Indian martial arts meet contemporary dance, “DSDC has deliberately and successfully pushed the limits of what is physically possible for its dancers. It projects an enormous amount of energy and adrenaline-rushing dare-devilry and celebrates those very qualities of passion and heroism that are hallmarks underlying all the great achievements of the human race!” Words as reverberant as the concept of a show based on the Vedic words for earth and sky.

The people in the Kerala-based performing arts troupe clearly take pride and strongly believe in what they are doing. Even though, as Devissaro admits, “Virtually all the productions of DSDC have, for some reason or the other, generated a lot of ‘heat’ among critics and within the dance fraternity in India. For us, however, this has never been an issue... we do not deliberately set out to shock people. We do what we do because we believe in it, and the fact that our work has predominantly been embraced by audiences serves as our greatest inspiration.”

He mentions an earlier DSDC production known as Sarpagati that so shocked some Indian critics with its very sensuous dance that at least one saw it as pornography. While there is no fear of that with BhuKham, he does grant that, because the production is a hitherto unheard of fusion of aerial dance, martial arts, yoga and traditional North Indian kathak dance, it could strike audiences as confusing.

Still, that is a risk DSDC is prepared to take. Devissaro points out, “You need to understand that these elements have evolved in the choreography of Daksha Sheth through a very slow and holistic process that goes back more than four decades. Daksha is not some dilettante dabbling in exotica to spice up the presentation values of her productions – which is, I must say, what much of so-called ‘fusion’ is all about!”

Rather, he says, “Daksha’s investment in yoga is from her childhood: she was exclusively a kathak dancer, and one of the best in India, for the first 18 years of her dance career. She has single-mindedly dedicated the last 25 years of her career to the quest for a unique and contemporary idiom of contemporary Indian dance. For 20 years now she and her dancers have been practising Kalaripayattu; and for the past 10 years Daksha and her dancers have worked on aerial dance.”

Should all this sound rather intimidating, though, in contrast to the considerable demands placed on herself and the rest of DSDC, Daksha Sheth herself merely asks of BhuKham’s audiences that they go into a performance “with an opening and enquiring mind, like a child going to a circus! If they ever look at their watches, even once during the course of the show, we will know that we have failed! Let’s hope we don’t fail audiences in Hong Kong!”

BhuKham: Circus of Earth & Sky will be presented at the HK City Hall’s Theatre from December 20 to 22. The December 20 and 21 evening performances will commence at 8pm while the Saturday, December 22, matinee will begin at 3pm. Tickets are $220 and $160 from URBTIX, 2734 9009.