Anusha performed twice at Art in Action 2014. Art in Action was “Inspired by the simple principle that people are fascinated when artists and craftsmen openly demonstrate their skills and discuss their work.” Anusha performed a selection of classical pieces. In one of the shows she performed with her friend Sushmita Gosh. Sushmita is one of the finest exponents of Kathak. She was also the Director of the Kathak Kendra, New Delhi.
Experience the sights, sounds and smells evoked through South Asian dance, music and theatre; and meet some amazing characters along the way.
Recommended age: 0-7 years, families and train and travel lovers
Duration 25 mins + stay and play
choogh choogh is a performance work inspired by the joy for travelling through India on a train. It combines classical Indian dance with contemporary movement, theatre and play, sharing with audiences a world full of colour, invention and flow. The journey starts with the audience getting a special choogh choogh ticket. Three artists weave a traveling tapestry with three scarves, morphing from one scene to the next as the sights, sounds and smells whiz by. The sound scape is rich with the sounds of the train, hawkers, festivals, musicians, ambient sounds of river, jungles and cities. The artists sing songs which are specially written for children – Chai Chai, Coffee Coffee and Kites Kites everywhere. They interact with the audience, engaging their imagination. Scarves become steam, railway tracks, turbans, train windows, camel, elephant and so much more. It is a journey where audience experience world inside the train, through the train and outside it. Along the way the ticket gets checked, imaginary food is sold and shared, among other interactions. This show is an exploration of just how much we can see and imagine, together, as the train chooghs chooghs on.
Please email us if you’d like to know more about presenting the work.
Photo©Vipul Sangoi
Colour Contact was a competitive multi-media dance performance commissioned by the Museum of London for the London Voices exhibition, 2004. Colour Contact explores the city of London and its present history through the eyes of its inhabitants. It draws upon the memories and voices of all those who live work and visit here. These voices were drawn from the oral history archive of the museum of London. It was performed at the Museum of London, Brent Brent Cross shopping centre, Southwark Tube Station and the Ealing Mela. Colour Contact was supported by the Heritage Lottery Fund.
Colour Contact is now regular part of Museum of London’s I am a Londoner project. Beeja runs a performance workshop with a school group visiting the museum to explore concepts of identity, belonging, community and engagement in multi-cultural London.
Deepam combines bharatanatyam with spoken text and poetry. It depicts some of the main episodes from the Ramayana: birth of Rama and his brothers; his exile from Kosala; attempted seduction of Rama and Lakshmana by the demoness Surpnakha, which results in her losing her nose; abduction of Sita by Ravana, Surpnakha’s brother, who wants revenge; Rama’s alliance with money king Sugriva and his general Hanuman who flies to Lanka to find Sita; the killing of Ravana and Rama’s triumphant return to Ayodhya.
Deepam was first performed at Wimbledon theatre and toured Devon.
This site specific performance was an encounter between Indian classical dance and the most celebrated surviving artworks of the Italian High Renaissance. Anusha performed infront of two of Raphael’s monumental biblical scenes interpreting and drawing out the stories and characters and enabling the audience to find new life in the painting. Performed in the Raphael Gallery at the V&A during the ‘Encounters’ Exhibition, 2004. These cartoon were painted by Raphael to make into tapestries for the Vatican.
