The Attakkalari Dance Company performs works in India and internationally. The Company's productions are at the forefront of the contemporary Indian dance scene and often incorporate cutting-edge digital arts, imaginative lighting and innovative music. Attakkalari’s highly successful, full length, multimedia dance productions, choreographed by its Artistic Director, Jayachandran Palazhy, have received much acclaim and have been performed at prestigious festivals all across the world.

The Repertory's current full length productions are:

BHINNA VINYASA

Full-length dance production (70 minutes)



Bhinna Vinyasa could be approximately described as a realm of changing configurations/assemblages. The production explores metaphysical journeys prompted by internal and external forces resulting in profound changes in the lives of individuals and communities. Images from arts and literature morph with the recollections of contemporary lived experiences where the archetypes, mundane and the imaginary coalesce to give you an immersed experience. Mapping the fractured fragments of dreams, desires, hopes and stark realities in the context of rapid and often unplanned urbanization, environmental shifts and migration, Bhinna Vinyasa will lead you through an immersed visceral experience.
Alluding to the imagined ancient idea of the ātman (individual soul) and paramātman (universal meta soul) as well as the rhizomatic relations in the “post-humanist future, in which the world has been enriched by a multiplicity of non-human agencies” Bhinna Vinyasa explores the notions of self through a continuous process of becoming and disappearing where the coordinates of time and space appear rather elastic.

AADHAARACHAKRA: A Dancelogue

Full-length dance production (70 minutes)



Developed as a ‘hybrid performance event’ weaving in multiple disciplines - movement, film, light, sound and multimedia design within a live contemporary dance performance. Set in an imagined land, the performance oscillates between the past and present inviting the audience to partake in a ritualised experience. In a complex and often fragmented narrative, the dancers embody characters from diverse Indian locales and periods. Celluloid images accompany the sometimes surreal visual journey. A small village provides the backdrop for jasmine vendors, vegetable sellers, bangle shops and tricycles - the myriad sounds and rainbow hues invoking an ever-present past. Calls from vendors, loud music from temples and mosques, and cricket commentaries blend into an urban Indian cacophony. The production brings alive the essence of domestic life in a traditional Chettinad house, the sacred rituals in a southern Shiva temple, and the flavours and fragrances of a spice market. The narrow alleyways of old Delhi mesh into the expansive solitude of Humayun's Tomb and the Qutub Minar.

MEIDHWANI: Echoes of the Body

Full-length dance production (60 minutes)



Derived from Tamil & Sanskrit (Mei meaning Body and Dhwani meaning Echo or Suggestion) the title subtly alludes to ‘Echoes of the Body’. The production traverses the urban Indian experience, combining the fragility of solitude, the chaos of turmoil, with the fluidity of movement.

CHRONOTOPIA: Emotional, Haunting, Introspective

Full-length multi-media dance production (60 minutes)



Inspired by the famous Tamil epic, Chilapathikkaram, Attakkalari’s multimedia dance production takes the audience through an episodic journey traversing layers of temporal and physical locations that often defy conventional notions of space and chronology. Anchoring on a central female character represented by three dancers, the piece journeys through rural, urban, historical, contemporary and even mythical contexts. In the process, time dissolves and dislocates, infusing the landscape with tenderness and loss.

 

PURUSHARTHA

A Multimedia Contemporary Dance Production (60 minutes)



Attakkalari’s multi-media dance production Purushartha is the result of an intense collaborative effort between Jayachandran Palazhy, Artistic Director at Attakkalari and Kunihiko Matsuo, Music Director and Digital Artist from Japan.

 

TRANSAVATAR: A journey through multiple identities

Duration: 66 Minutes with 15 Minute Intermission



TransAvatar is a multi-media performance of Contemporary dance and Martial arts with integrated digital sound and technology. This unique dance production, explores the multiple identities of individuals and its manifestations in different physical and mental spaces.

 

FOR PINA...

Full-length multi-media dance production (60 minutes)



A homage to an iconic dance artist Pina Bausch produced in collaboration with the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan India.