Dear Friends,
The last time Sutra was invited to grace the famous Khajuraho Dance Festival in 2004, almost 20 years ago, the well known Indian dance film-maker, Sunil Mehra, followed us with his crew. He created a most compelling 40-min documentary of our journey and performance in Khajuraho titled, ‘Sutra in India’.
It was understandable that when Sutra was invited once again to perform ‘Jaya Ram’ at the Khajuraho Dance Festival last February 2023 (almost 20 years later), we immediately requested photographer
S Magendran to accompany us.
As for Magen, in 2012, he had followed us when we performed at the famous Bayon Temple (Angkor Thom) and subsequently presented a most amazingly beautiful photography exhibition entitled ‘Sublime Angkor’ at Sutra Gallery.
We were therefore delighted when he accepted to follow us to Khajuraho.
Admittedly, we were rather nervous about conducting photo-shoots at this popular UNESCO heritage site as negotiating permission from the Archeological Survey of India to photograph the dancers at the temple complex could be tricky.
Fortunately, the very person in charge of the temple complex was present the night we performed for the G20 audience. We bumped into him the very next morning and we were allowed to ‘shoot’!
For the exhibition, S Magendran had to consider two approaches: one was to photograph the dancers against the magnificent architectural backdrop of the Khajuraho temple complex; and the other, to capture the sensuality of the dancers in response with the richly voluptuous sculptures decorating both the outer and inner walls of the temples.
Thematically, the two perspectives became the driving creative force for Magen’s photographs as he had to design his photographs so that the dancers contextualised these approaches whilst simultaneously embracing the Khajuraho experience.
Needless to say, we feel that S Magendran had once again succeeded on all these accounts and created a sense of wonder as we are drawn to the vision of the dancers blending with the distinctive monumentality of the architecture of Khajuraho as well as appearing to organically be part of the sensuality of the sculptures.
Don’t miss this amazing exhibition!
RSVP by 22 August – +6019-333 1092
Sutra Foundation
