Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company is an emerging company that performs and presents Indian dance forms, such as Bharata Natyam, and Modern dance, mirroring the multiple identities of second generation South Asians. The company combines the arts with social justice issues, both by incorporating the themes into their work and via partnerships with local community centers and schools.
Led by Artistic Director Daniel Phoenix Singh, the organization has received numerous accolades for their work. Most recently, the company was awarded the Founder’s Award for Innovation in Dance in 2007 and was the 2008 recipient of the Metro DC Dance Awards for Emerging Group and Excellence in Costume Design.
VelocityDC recently caught up with Singh to chat about Dakshina’s unique approach to presenting diverse dance forms and the 6th Annual Fall Festival of Indian Arts taking place at this weekend at the historic Lincoln Theatre.
vDC: Dakshina is known for performing from a range of diverse styles, from Indian to modern, often borrowing from and making connections from seemingly disparate forms within one piece which is quite unique. What can you tell us about the company’s underlying artistic philosophy?
The underlying artistic philosophy is one of curiosity–I’m always interested in learning new forms and putting seemingly disparate forms side by side to see what we learn about culture and ourselves when dance forms intersect. We learn a lot just as dancers when we keep challenging ourselves, and hopefully the audience members learn something interesting about themselves and about what they are observing on stage.
vDC: Also, it’s well known that you have an interest in social justice. How does that factor into your artistic vision?
My interest in social justice developed over time, but was strongly influenced by my graduate school work in Women’s Studies. I was finally able to articulate that it was important for me as an artist to try to present works that were integrated with the messiness and beauty of life. I wasn’t interested only in art for art’s sake, that was only one end of the spectrum for me. I also wanted to create and perform in dances that were about life and being human. Hence, the interest in social justice issues.
vDC: How do you feel that juxtaposing the traditional with the modern affects audiences? Does this type of presentation style make dance more accessible?
I think it is crucial to present dance as the evolving form that it is. This allows audience members to find a comfortable entry point, be it classical or contemporary. From this entry point, they can then move to the other areas which they may have found interesting originally. So, presenting a range is the key to allow accessibility to dance which is a very abstract art form.
Also, tradition didn’t happen over night; it happened because someone kept experimenting and figuring out what would work and used that to build a vocabulary that is now labeled as “tradition”. So rather than just presenting dance as traditional or modern, I like to think of dance as a cycle – what is today’s experimentation will be tomorrow’s tradition, and even today’s experimentation is probably looking at something previous generations explored in different ways themselves.
vDC: With that in mind, give us a sense of how this plays out in the Fall Festival of Indian Arts given its mission to present traditional Indian arts forms within a modern context. What can we expect to see this year?
Within Dakshina, we’re exploring re-visioning the familiar story of Karna. Each character in the epic Mahabharata finds his or her calling in life, and Karna recognizes his as that of giving. He gives endlessly to everyone, even his enemies; he gives his life when his mother asks for it in the stead of his half-brother, and ultimately he gives even the fruits of his life’s good deeds as he is dying. Something about this story simplifies our duty to fellow beings. Dakshina means “offering” in Sanskrit and this theme of giving resonated with me personally. My collaborator, Aniruddh Vasudevan, also liked the theme when I suggested it to him and together we’ve created a new piece retelling Karna’s story. Aniruddh is a frequent collaborator with Dakshina. We think alike a lot, yet we also challenge and push each other from our comfort zones. We have a great chemistry working together and I hope that we’ll be able to do many more projects together.
As for our guest artists, Alarmel Valli, Madhavi Mudgal and Leela Samson, I wanted to highlight the strength of the solo which is central in Indian dances. There is depth that the solo artist has to plumb to be able to create and hold the magic by herself on stage and Alarmel Valli, Madhavi Mudgal and Leela Samson are some of the greatest soloists in India today. It was an easy choice to invite them to DC. Initially, these soloists and choreographers were considered pioneers for forging new ground by exploring and incorporating secular texts into their dance forms. This was a huge shift from the traditionally spiritual nature of Indian dance, but again their approach made their work accessible to audiences.
Leela Samson, in particular, faced a lot of hardship when she was appointed as the director of Kalakshetra, the oldest dance institution in Chennai, India. Chennai is the capital of Tamil Nadu, my home state in India. Samson was the first non-Hindu leading the institution and there was much public commotion over the fact that someone with a Jewish background (or more accurately a non-Hindu background) was leading Kalakshetra. I wanted to show our support of her work as an artist and not get distracted by the mud slinging that was going on in Chennai.
vDC: Given that the festival has been running for six years, has each iteration evolved over time? If so, how?
The festival has evolved to include more of Dakshina’s own award-winning fusion work into the first half of the show. At first, we had Dakshina performing on separate nights from the guest artists, but over time we realized that seeing the traditional work, the modern dance and fusion work side by side was important. So, over time we’ve developed a richer, more integrated programming that we hope makes traditional dance more accessible.
vDC: Do you have any advice to newcomers who are interested in attending the festival this weekend? Where can they get more information on what they will be seeing?
I don’t want people to assume that Indian dance requires you to be a connoisseur of any sort. We’ll have detailed program notes to help you follow along with these intricate and beautiful dance forms. And feel free to email us at info@dakshina.org before or after the show with any questions or post your comments on our blog at http://www.dakshina.org/category/blog . Also, consider joining us on Facebook at http://www.facebook.com/DakshinaDC. We’re happy to chat with anyone who wants more information on the shows.
Photo Credit: Dakshina/Daniel Phoenix Singh Dance Company – Stephen Barnovics
Daniel Phoenix Singh and Dakshina will be performing during the 6th Annual Fall Festival of Indian Arts on Friday, October 23rd and Saturday, October 24th, 2009.
Want to see them live at Lincoln Theatre? Don’t miss out – Get more information and tickets at dakshina.org!
