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The fluid movements

Terence Lewis explains why contemporary dancers are not bound by rules of the art.

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It was almost after a decade that Terence Lewis (in inset) returned to theatre with his new production Scrambled Eggs... Or Sunny Side Up. This performance, to be held tomorrow as a part of the contemporary dance festival at NCPA, narrates eight stories of friendship, love and human emotions and bondings.

Fill in the blanks
Lewis says that the viewers of this dance-theatre will find hidden clues if they watch the performances closely. Each movement of the artistes interprets their stories subtly without excessive use of costumes, props, lyrics or loud expressions.

“The performances narrate different stories but much will be left to the imagination of the audience. You can say that the dancers will be dancing at the edge, and I would like my audience to sit at the edge too. They should be able to feel what the artiste on stage is conveying through his or her movements,” he says.

Styles galore
The production is a mix of contemporary dance styles like contact work, release technique, flying low and fighting monkey. “I learnt this dance in Europe but in India, one can’t apply the same techniques. My contemporary dance movements are improvised with Indian sub-context,” he adds.

The artiste on-stage
The audience will also see the dancer Lewis act on the stage. “Yes, I am back to theatre, and the performance includes both dance and acting,” he says. The dance part, no doubt, has been directed by Lewis himself but the theatre part has been directed by Quasar Padamsee. “It is a great experience really. He comes from a very strong theatre background, and I come from very strong dance one, so this mix of dance and theatre talent has been amazing,” says Lewis adding that with someone else directing his moves a different point of view was presented in the whole act.

Personal touch
Contemporary dance though popular in India, draws a lot of flak initially. “When I started performing, people used to write off this art saying that this was no dance at all. However, now one can see that most of the dances are based on contemporary dance,” defends Lewis. He, though, agrees that he had to make few changes in his style to assimilate it in the Indian art form.

“Indian audiences do not like open-ended situations. They need a climax, they want the story to finish. I diluted contemporary dance with addition of Bollywood and it gained momentum,” he says. But doesn’t that mean that there is no pure form of dance then? “Contemporary is an organic form of dance, it allows you to personalise your dance, your movements, it allows you to fly, make your moves according to your body needs, momentum and gravity,” he concludes.

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