An evening of South Asian dance that left us eager for more

DANCE
Sangam: Performing Arts Festival of South Asia and Diaspora
Dancehouse, Carlton, March 11 to 13

It’s remarkable that dancers trained in South Asian dance forms do not have more visibility on Melbourne’s contemporary dance scene because local academies that teach those forms have never been more popular.

One reason for this lack of visibility is the limited number of pathways to a professional dance career. But it’s also true that popular expectations about what contemporary dance should look like are still too narrow.

Sangam’s latest intervention at the home of contemporary dance in Melbourne is a welcome one. The most recent program offers six new dance pieces by artists working in different ways with classical Indian forms.

It’s the sort of show that leaves you impatient for more.

The excerpt from Raina Peterson’s Maya, with its eerily compelling evocation of potentially malevolent divinity, is especially tantalising.

With a single hand rising from under a sheet, Peterson represents the samudra manthana or the mythical churning of the ocean of milk. It’s a remarkable bit of theatre that culminates in a vision of spinetingling intensity.

Shriraam Theivendran, a Bharatanatyam practitioner, brings a productive sense of sprawl to the space. With his small orchestra seated to one side, he stomps and flaunts in widening circles, seeming to be everywhere at once.