Dance DVD
For those who wish to experience the art of Malavika Sarukkai there is now a high quality DVD, available, on her work that is marketed by Times Music. Entitled ‘ Vaahini – the Sacred and the Worldly’ it showcases select aspects from her dance and her choreographies from the traditional repertoire as well as dance compositions based on specially commissioned contemporary poems by eminent poet novelist Priya Sarukkai Chabria.
The Director K, Hariharan’s Take
“Filming a performance by Malavika Sarukkai is a simultaneously both a challenge and an enormous source of joy. As the director of the multi camera recording of her performance I had to do justice to the complex mise-en-scene that she already worked out with a fixed proscenium in her mind and at the same time transfer it into the aesthetics of a television show.
Secondly Malavika is a dancer who works very strongly with her intuition. Responding to the here and now rather than repeating some set movements as would be conventionally done in a repertory. This puts us as filmmakers in a constant state of alertness keeping ourselves ready for all kinds of improvisations. And yet none of us felt any tensions for Malavika has the ability to infuse so much joy into her work and is capable of separating herself form the dancer and watching her own performance with childlike delight! And that delight spreads like the fragrance of burning incense, transporting all of us into Vaahini, into the flow from the sacred to the worldly and back! “
