Kalbelia - Dance of the Snake Charmers
Gulabo Sapera & Party
Millennium Stage North
Kennedy Center's Maximum India Festival
March 8, 2011 at 6 PM
"Sarpagati - Way of the Serpent"
Daksha Sheth Dance Company
Terrace Theater
Kennedy Center's Maximum India Festival
March 8, 2011 at 7:30PM
by George Jackson
copyright 2011 by George Jackson
Sapera's dozen - they dance, make music and do stunts - would get attention anywhere. In India I could see them setting up their acts in a busy market square and putting a damper on commerce. At the Kennedy Center they drew an overflow crowd into the north foyer and held everyone. Even the standees seemed ready to last hours because the Party was having such fun doing the entertaining. Much of the music, made by five men and a boy, was percussive - pleasantly so and with pulse. There was, too, a type of windpipe played with virtuosity. Most of the dancing and singing was done by five women and a girl who were colorfully gowned but one man was a singer too and another, Sapera, and the boy also danced. At first I could see no snakes.
Whirling dances, prancing dances and shaking dances abounded. Bravura movement included back bends, spinning on the knees instead of the feet, and dancing with items balanced on top of the head. The girl and an older woman did the foot-in-hand reaching over their backs. The boy balanced while standing on a board of nails. Still, I saw no snakes.
Sapera, who wears his hair long and has a moustache, played percussion and the windpipe, danced and, casually, acted as emcee. I fully expected him to bring out the snakes. The performance ended at high pitch, with Sapera's Party and much of the public in delirium. It was only then I realized we were the snakes - we had been charmed.
To see all creation in a grain of sand can mean enlightenment or be a curse. In the case of the Daksha Sheth Dance Company's "Way of the Serpent", production values (especially the lighting) try to turn grains of sand i.e, simplistic choreography, into significant ritual. There was symbolism according to the program notes as the four male and two female dancers engaged in themes of accumulation, procreation and power. Some passages of dancers swaying on ropes were nicely dreamlike. Sequences on the ground looked faux primitive, would-be martial or just acrobatic. After what I thought was the conclusion of "Way of the Serpent", the company inexplicably did a hip hop postscript. Throughout, there had been little relationship I could see to the traditions of dance in India. Daksha Sheth was choreographer and Devissaro the composer and designer. Both she and he coined the work's concept based on the snake as representing "primal creative energy". Yes, there was snake motion at the beginning and bird motion ("the serpent is transformed intro the golden bird") at the end.
