(Originally Posted: March 6, 2013)
Beautiful grace and elegance weaves through the dancing in this video that is performed by the, Samadhi Dance Company, based in Amsterdam, Holland. The piece is called “In the Mood of “Mohini” and the music is called “Silent Movie’, which describes succinctly how, this video comes across. Ths music in the video are tracks from Cirque du Soleil, Bonobo: Little Dragon and Yarn Tiersen. The choreographer is Vraja Sundari Keilman. Just to note Samadhi means to bring together or merge, which describes the foundation and nature of this company.
The Samadhi Dance company is an interdisciplinary company that fuses ballet, contemporary dance, urban/street jazz and other dance and theatre forms with Bharata Natyan, traditional Indian Dance. I think this is one of the best merging of Western dance forms with a Classical Eastern Dance form I have seen in a long time.
Not only does this company merge dance forms but collaborates with artists from other disciplines to create new and innovative productions such as this video. The content and values of their works is derived from and unites togehter the knowledge and wisdom of Ancient Vedic teachings with Western art and dance techniques.
What captures me about this video is foremost the continuous fluid motion throughout. I feel like I am being caught up in the wind and carried through the lyrical serpentine arms and body movements and the blowing and swirling fabric of the costumes, and I love it! I feel as though I am being blown in and out of Western and Indian sensibility as the movement just flows easily from one to the other.
In contrast the music, which also flows, is grounded by a deep male voice which adds depth, character while highlighting the movement above.
And finally I love the way this video has been produced like an old silent movie. The cuts create an interesting speed with the way the dancers move and join together. And if you look closely, you will see the film is run backwards which is very clever and effective! The back ground is stark black giving no depth to the piece so the dancers seem to dance on one plane. The lighting is minimal creating an antique look through the coloring and stark shadows in the fabric of the costumes.
Over all, I really like this piece. The dancing is beautiful, and you can see the dancers are well trained in various styles. I like the Indian dancer who seems to ground the dancers in perhaps the ancient wisdom.
The video is beautifully crafted to give the “Silent Movie” effect.
This is a lovely treat, I hope you enjoy it and be sure to SHARE it with friends!
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