Everyone admits it’s an unusual mix: Classical Indian dance coupled with American modern dance, the paintings of Vincent van Gogh and the music of Maurice Ravel and Arvo Pärt.
But that might be exactly what will make “Starry Nights: Painting with Dance” so adventurous. The March 19 performance in the Overture Center’s Promenade Hall, a collaboration between Kanopy Dance (the modern group) and Kalaanjali Dance (the classical Indian group) is full of unexpected juxtapositions and shared, intercultural, cross-genre moments of beauty.
Kanopy Dance Company member Stormy Gaylord rehearses with a mix of Kanopy and Kalaanjali Dance Company members for “Starry Nights: Painting with Dance,” an upcoming performance fusing the talents of the modern dance and classical Indian dance companies.
“It might seem like an odd connection,” said Kanopy co-artistic director Lisa Thurrell. “But there is a connection.”
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Both forms of dance, along with Van Gogh’s well-known paintings, embody “an emphasis on color, light, texture, emotion and feeling,” she said.
“Starry Nights: Painting with Dance” will be in two parts, divided by an intermission. The first will feature each company performing works separately, and the second will combine Kanopy and Kalaanjali dancers, performing side by side.
Members of the Kalaanjali Dance Company wear their traditional costumes in a rehearsal for the upcoming production “Starry Nights: Painting with Dance,” in collaboration with Kanopy Dance.
Though based in very different movement traditions, both dance forms have highly structured architecture, Thurrell said.
“Both are grounded into the earth,” she said. While the Indian dance style often features flexed knees and intricate footwork on the floor, “We do jumps and leaps — but we are still very connected to the earth.”
Kanopy Dance Company choreographer and co-artistic director Lisa Thurrell guides dancers from Kanopy and the Kalaanjali Dance Company during a rehearsal week for “Starry Nights: Painting with Dance,” to be performed March 19 in the Overture Center's Promenade Hall.
Kalaanjali Dance was founded in Madison by Meenakshi Ganesan to promote and showcase Bharatanatyam, the oldest classical dance tradition in India dating back nearly 3,000 years.
Members of the Kalaanjali Dance Company rehearse for their collaborative production with the Kanopy Dance Company.
Encompassing music, rhythm and expression, Bharatanatyam strictly adheres to the Natyashastra, a Sanskrit treatise on performing arts. In “Starry Nights,” Kalaanjali dancers will wear their opulent traditional costumes, featuring bells to amplify the rhythm of the movement and beaded hair ornaments signifying the sun and the moon.
Ganesan has done most of her choreography for the show from the San Francisco area, where she is now based, using technology ranging from Zoom to “Facetime, email, text, WhatsApp,” she said.
Members of the Kanopy and Kalaanjali dance companies present their dance genres side by side in a rehearsal for their March 19 fusion performance "Starry Nights: Painting with Dance."
She continues to travel back to Madison frequently, and still operates the Kalaanjali Dance Company here. While she’s back in the Midwest this spring, Ganesan will also direct her 25-dancer group in appearances at two free Kids in the Rotunda performances at the Overture Center for the Arts on March 18; at the Overture Center’s two-day free International Festival April 1-2; and, the second week in April, at a large festival for Indian music and dance in Cleveland, Ohio.
The only two performances of “Starry Nights: Painting with Dance” will take place on the same day, March 19, at 3 and 6 p.m. A second performance was added due to demand, Thurrell said.
Dancers from the Kanopy and Kalaanjali dance companies prepare for the upcoming show.
Making it happen
Ganesan said the idea for “Starry Nights” came about when she was feeling homesick for Madison, and her husband took her to see an immersive Van Gogh exhibit in San Francisco, with huge animated video projections of the Dutch Post-Impressionist’s work. The interplay of color, movement and composition in Van Gogh’s famous paintings all lent themselves to dance, she thought.
Ganesan contacted Thurrell and Kanopy co-artistic director Robert Cleary to see if a “Starry Nights” collaboration might happen. The three had worked jointly on the dance production “Illusion to Resolution: East Meets West” in 2015, and were looking at other projects to do together when the COVID-19 pandemic upended the performing arts world.
When Ganesan contacted Kanopy this season, “Literally the only day (on the calendar) we could find was March 19,” Thurrell said. “We decided enough’s enough, let’s not wait anymore — life’s too short not to do it.”
With projections of Van Gogh paintings on stage for dances titled “Sunflowers” and “Irises,” “Starry Nights” will showcase Bharatanatyam classical Indian dance with traditional music, as well as works such as Thurrell’s “Prayer,” which premiered in 2012 and has been reimagined for 2023.
Thurrell, Cleary and Ganesan will appear together in the piece “Self Portrait: Facets,” which the three choreographed in a fusion of Bharatanatyam and modern dance styles, with music by Shruthi Rajasekar.
“Starry Night: Painting with Dance” fits in well with “Kanopy’s vision of finding imaginative, different projects, and to offer diverse voices in dance,” said Thurrell. By working alongside Kalaanjali dancers, Kanopy dancers also get exposed to a vastly different style of movement and tradition, she said.
“It is beautiful when it’s done this way,” she said. “You have the best of both worlds, because you have these dancers both doing what they do well.”
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