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In Step With Nana
A bird trapped in tar. A doomsayer
with a mangled face and an atrophied third limb. Not pretty sights, but contemporary
American dancer-soloist Nana Gleason makes them even more disturbing in her new production
Fallen Cities -- a look at metros "dying both on the inside and out" --
that was put up in Calcutta last week and will travel to Jamshedpur, Delhi and Mumbai from
January. Crowds thronged the show, mostly for a multi-cultural experience that Gleason's
reputation promises. She's a jazz-tap-flamenco-classical ballet master who's "danced
all her life", and incorporated much of all this in her part-mime, part-choreography
performances. Moving to Avignon, France, mid-life to teach dance, she decided earlier this
year to move to India for the same reason. Asked about her style, Gleason, 60 responded,
"Why do I have to say something? If everything could be written out, why would we
need performers?"
Recently she conducted a 10-day workshop with Calcutta's performing artists like Beat
Busters, Padatik Theatre Group and members of Ananda Shankar's school. She taught them
some basic leaps, rolls, and balances, but not what she does. "I just teach them the
alphabet of dance, then leave them to make their own handwriting," says Gleason. It's
called creative freedom.
-Labonita Ghosh
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