Dance theatre

RAVANAMA
There are several strands that have crossed and re-crossed in the making of this piece.  On stage we see an actor  in search of a character, Ravana. Why is she so attracted to him while all the world considers him evil? Is it to do with the performer's  attraction to a form – Kathakali - a form that depicts Ravana in high scale and grandeur?  Every time the actor dips into the ‘world’ of Kathakali she comes out with a further revelation of Ravana…. 
There are so many versions of the story. According to one, Ravana never died, but instead took the form of a bird and made the forest his home. In another version, Sita is actually Ravana’s daughter, but was given away at birth as he was warned that she would be the cause of his death. So, is the Ramayana actually a story of longing -  of a man / father for his lover/daughter. It’s the archetypal story of the lover who is also sibling / parent / child, so familiar in the Greek tradition – Eudipus, Elektra, Jocasta...

Sound design Samar Grewal

Lights Rajesh Singh
Created and performed by Maya Krishna Rao


 performed Feb. 19, 2011















KHOL DO

This is a piece inspired by a short story, Khol Do, written by Saadat Hasan Manto.
Khol Do is set in the violence and turmoil that accompanied the break up of India and the creation of Pakistan in 1947.
A father has lost his daughter somewhere in the crowds of fleeing people on a railway platform. All he has left of her is her veil. For him the search for his daughter is so intense, so deep that he begins to find her, bit by bit, in his own body.
This is a piece exclusively in movement, with no text.The body expresses, in fragments, the atmosphere on the railway platform, the anxiety of the father, the restless search, the daughter, the rape, and finally a still portrait of the daughter - a girl, lost in the crowd, one among us.
First performed Dec.1993

Sound design  Vikram Joglekar, Gavin O'Shea, Ashim Ghosh
Costume    Tara Rao
Created and performed by Maya Krishna Rao