RASA ODISSI, 2014

In conjunction with International Dance Day, 29th April 2014

My first solo performance in Malaysia, invited by Chong Keat Aun to perform at his venue, a beautiful antique and quaint Chinese Art House on Jalan Petaling, Kuala Lumpur. Thank you Keat Aun for preparing such a beautiful venue for the show. Very grateful.

I explored my first Odissi abhinaya dance piece using the guitar played by musician and singer Syd Johann as an exploration to present facial expressions and moods with no body movements as the finale dance item as well as at the introduction as an improvisation with Syd Johann on the guitar before going into my Odissi repertoire. Thank you for doing this Johann. Rehearsals were at Toccatta Studios in SS2. Thank you Chor Guan.

Thank you to Jeffrey Leong that helped me with the sound who I would later work with as my musician with Theban Arumugam in a dance and music collaboration at The KuAsh Theatre, Kuala Lumpur.

Thank you to everyone including friends whom I had not seen since school who came.

SOLD OUT FULL HOUSE performance.

Official Dance Day Message

A dancer’s creed

I believe in one dance

father, all-resonant

revealer of heaven and earth

and of all things visible and invisible:

Light of body,

very dance of very souls,

begotten, not made,

ever-present,

by whom all things are transfigured.

Who for us men and for our salvation

came down from heaven

before all worlds

and was incarnate in the bodies of mortals

and humanized them.

And was crucified during the consumer society,

suffered and was buried

and rises again in isolated places

where no scriptures exist.

And comes again with glory

to enliven both the quick and the dead:

whose kingdom shall have no end.

I believe in a holy dance,

lord, giver of life,

who proceedeth from independent communities

who speaks by the flesh of humans,

instead of the prophets.

I acknowledge that it constitutes a baptism

for the remission of afflictions and sins

the resurrection of dead limbs,

and the life of the world to come.

By Alkis Raftis