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Re-searching Gondwana by ChitAmbara

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    ChitAmbara is the non-profit performance and collaboration arm of the Saraswati Mahavidhyalaya (SMV) in Perth, Australia, and a sister organization of The Temple of Fine Arts Kuala Lumpur.   The institution “ whose vision is to be a centre for artistic and scientific learning, in keeping with holistic values, was the brainchild of the late founder Swami Shantanand Saraswati. His Holiness envisioned an institute where arts and sciences, ancient and modern, can be learned and explored, synthesised into a holistic experience for the student, since “Truth is One and Paths are Many”. The ultimate goal is to serve humanity through education. ‘Saraswati’ literally means ‘that which is constantly flowing’. ‘Maha’ means great and ‘Vidhyalaya’ translates ‘to seat of knowledge’, therefore “a great seat of knowledge that constantly enlightens the ever changing and moving mind.” ChitAmbara is working primarily towards creating a space for creative collaborations, nurturing talent and providing
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Wong Kit Yaw: Keeping True to His Vision

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  Wong Kit Yaw is described by those who know him, have met him or have heard of him in many, many different ways. He is an artist who is a fount of knowledge, a disciplinarian, a tyrant, a gentle giant, dramatic, fun-loving, lovable, hysterical at times, and an always generous man. He is a choreographer, educator, director and a dance pioneer in Malaysia who entered the world of dance in a most unusual manner – leaving the passion for performance nurtured in high school in Teluk Intan for a career in construction and as a site supervisor in Singapore in the late 1970s. He then chose a path less travelled, and relinquished greater financial security of construction work for the love of dance. He enrolled in full-time training at the Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts (NAFA), Singapore in 1980. Here he underwent a comprehensive program of training in Chinese classical and folk dance, Indian classical dance, Malay folk dance and contemporary dance. Over the last decades, he has continued to en
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The Khajuraho International Dance Festival, India: A BEAM Analysis

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Introduction There is a town (which is more like a village) named Khajuraho, which is a 13-hour train ride southeast of New Delhi, the largest city and the capital of India, that hosts the India’s oldest dance festival – the Khajuraho International Dance Festival every year since 1975. Why would a festival of dance take place “in the middle of nowhere”?   Fig. 1: Khajuraho Train Station. Photo: Author I was very privileged to attend in 2023 and arrived at the hot, barren, clay-filled and poorly-maintained train station and was overwhelmed by the heat and the smells of cow dung, goats, stray dogs, excrement and more – the smell of all poor rural areas in India, I assume. It was an onslaught to the senses and while it was not pleasant, it was an experience that I was anticipating. Although I am of Indian origin, I have hardly spent time in India, and this was my first visit to this place and this festival. As a dance artist, I have never studied and do not practice any Indian art for
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Moving Bodies, Navigating Conflict: Practicing Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka by Ahalya Satkunaratnam - a book review

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The book Moving Bodies, Navigating Conflict: Practicing Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka  published by Wesleyan University Press in 2020 details the complex location and representation of Bharata Natyam, a classical dance form accepted to have emerged from the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. The author, Ahalya Satkunaratnam is a professor of arts and humanities at Quest University Canada and a Bharata Natyam exponent with a diverse, multinational upbringing that is reflected in her approach to research and academia. Added to the lens of the postcolonial feminist scholar, this study on the practice of Bharata Natyam in Colombo, Sri Lanka is ground-breaking. She has researched and described in the most poetic, academic language, the intricacies that can be read into the practice of Bharata Natyam. What has made it even more fascinating, is that this foregrounds the civil war of Sri Lanka and the heightened religious and ethnic wars that have plagued the country. Satkunaratnam eluci
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Blurring Boundaries Through Bharatanatyam

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This edited article shares the journey of Malaysian dancers not of Indian ethnicity or Hindu faith who completed their Arangetram which is a solo debut performance that announces the presentation of the trained Bharatanatyam dancer on stage to the public. In Malaysia, dance is often viewed as the performative symbol of ethnic identity, and national unity, or as a tourist attraction. This is showcased at all government-sponsored platforms including global summits, sports spectacles, and state banquets. Against this social and cultural landscape in Malaysia, this article focuses on and highlights how the practice of Bharatanatyam by non-Indian, non-Hindu dancers trained at ASWARA, blurs boundaries of race and religion in embodied ways. Norbaizura Abd Ghani, Mohd Yunus Ismail, Mohammad Khairi Mokthar, Imran Syafiq Mohd Affandi, and Fatin Nadhirah Rahmat who are Malay Muslims; four Chinese namely Elaine Ng Xinying, a Roman Catholic, Kimberly Yap Choy Hoong, a Protestant Christian, Madeline
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