Dear friends,
Sutra Foundation presents FIRST SIGHTING, a homecoming for Sutra bharatanatyam!
14 – 18 (Wed – Sun) February, 2024
Panggung Bandaraya DBKL
Ticket link: https://www.cloudjoi.com/shows/first-sighting
With ‘First Sighting’, Sutra Foundation launches 2024 with the premiere of a new bharatanatyam production featuring 8 Sutra dancers.
Over the years, Sutra has creatively stirred and charged the imagination of Malaysians with bountiful yield of excellent odissi productions, eventually establishing odissi as an integral facet of the diverse Malaysian dance scene. Sutra did this, to a certain extent, at the expense of its first love – the more known bharatanatyam, the elegant, chiseled and geometric South Indian classical dance.
Sutra, at one time prided itself as the country’s leading creative force of bharatanatyam, and possessed, then, a formidable repertoire of one of the most brilliant bharatanatyam gurus – Padma Shri awardee Guru Adyar K Lakshman.
Lakshman Sir made his mark injecting vigour, flair and complexity in the pure dance composition or thirmanams .
Now, however, Sutra is keen to reclaim once again its previous exalted position in bharatanatyam.
With ‘First Sighting’, Sutra aims to rectify and apprise this state of affairs and is confident to be able to do so with the energized presence of Rathimalar Govindarajoo and Ishwar Muthkumaran, the two dancer-teachers presently helming Sutra’s bharatanatyam faculty.
Rathimalar Govindarajoo and Ishwar Muthkumaran, both accomplished bharatanatyam dancers, have steadily and surely brought back the shine to Sutra bharatanatyam dancers.
Rathimalar, a bharatanatyam dancer initially trained in Sutra, became the dance-star of the contemporary modern Shobana Jeyasingh Dance Company UK; Ishwar Muthkumaran, on the other hand, is at the other end of the spectrum, steeped in traditional Tanjore Quartet background.
One can expect an interesting creative ‘clash’ of modernity within a highly traditional paradigm. The challenge for ‘First Sighting’, is not only to take on Lakshman Sir’s difficult and complex pure dance passages but to come up with fresh and interesting re-arrangements for group composition, while still retaining the classic and traditional aesthetics within the classical format of bharatanatyam.
Augmented with the strong mentorship of Ramli Ibrahim, the audience can anticipate something different and exciting – nothing short of the extra-ordinary.
Book Now!
Sutra Foundation
