Award-winning choreographer and performer SEETA PATEL has re-imagined the iconic ballet, The Rite of Spring in the powerful classical Indian dance style, Bharatanatyam.
With a cast of six outstanding performers, the opens at Newcastle Dance City on May 9th as the start of a UK tour including a date at Leicester’s Curve Theatre on 12th May.
Composer Igor Stravinsky wrote The Rite of Spring, the ballet and orchestral concert – widely considered to be his masterpiece – for the 1913 season of Sergei Diaghilev’s Ballets Russes. When it premiered at the Théâtre des Champs-Élysées in Paris, the avant-garde nature of the music and choreography caused a sensation and continues to be influential over a century later.
“The Rite of Spring has been choreographed by many different artists and companies over the years,” says Seeta Patel. “Nijinsky, Pina Bausch, Maurice Bejart to name a few. But this will be the first time ever it will be done with the Bharatanatyam dance form. I’m really excited to be bringing my first upscaled work to premiere at Newcastle’s Dance City. It will be my first time presenting work at this amazing venue; it’s been a joy to rehearse in the lovely theatre there too”
Patel’s production is set to be an exciting flirtation between East and West as it looks beyond notions of the exotic and orientalist perceptions of Eastern classical arts. The piece will showcase some of the finest international Indian classical dance talent in an exciting bridge between two very technical, powerful and evocative art forms: Western classical music and Indian classical dance. Seeta Patel will bring a transformative re-telling of this tale through intricate rhythmic footwork, expressive prowess, geometric and dynamic movement.
